The Castle on the Hill
by SirSpicer
Summary: "What matters is to find a purpose ... to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die." - Soren Kierkegaard
1. Prologue

Prologue

What you are reading now is the story of a little boy who loses everything.

In reality, it's a story about many people who lose many things: their homes, their loved ones, their hopes and dreams, their very reasons for being. What you are reading now is an adventure within an imaginary land full of magic and fantastic possibilities — but this is not a fairy tale. There are no great morals to be learned, no heroes to ride off into the sunset, no happily-ever-afters. This is a story that ends in bittersweet melancholy. It begins after the end, in the scorched embers of a long-dead world. It's a story of loss, and hardship, and cruelty, and a desperate struggle to carve meaning from meaninglessness.

But more than anything else, it's the story of a little boy.

* * *

They were called the Deadlands: a vast, interminable desert that reached as far as the eye could see and as far as the feet could travel. Among the remnants of mankind who still clung to survival, tales were told of the days when the Deadlands were still green — but nothing grew there, not anymore. The rains had not fallen since long before anyone could remember, and the only remaining signs of growth were the rare scraps of dry scrub or the even rarer husks of withered trees. Here and there may be the ruins of some ancient, long-forgotten civilization: a crumbling stone tower, a deserted village, the sundered foundations of a granary; but else-wise there were only fields of ash and rock and dust, or yawning ravines pooled with darkness. There was only emptiness and stillness that stretched on and on and on.

If any significant shifts came from weather to weather or season to season, it was only the harshness of the winds. The dustbowls came frequently and often without warning, screaming across the sooty plains and craggy bluffs. In their desperation to escape, the people of the Deadlands could only barricade themselves in their holes or caves or ruins. Still, no matter what, the storms would invade even the tiniest of spaces and pollute even the most meager stores of rations. To live through a single season was an uncertainty. To face an unsheltered night in the elements was no less than a death sentence.

But some, driven by either desperation or fear or pure madness, might make that very attempt. It was in the setting gloom of dusk, in the raging bowels of such a storm, that a man made his own lonely journey. He was the Scout of a larger company, a man of large build with a thick torso and heavy boots — but in spite of his size, even he struggled against the winds with each step. On occasion he would stop, lifting his hooded head almost as if to catch a scent. Then he would trudge onward, shielded from the stinging sands by only a threadbare cloak and a haggard set of armor.

At the base of a looming dune, the Scout stumbled upon the coiled corpse of something black and monstrous. It was an empty carapace made of segmented plates, not dissimilar to the chitin of an insect. The remnants knew them as "Sink-Worms," named for the great pits that they would open up in the desert fields. It was believed that they dwelled in the deep reaches of the earth, tunneling and breeding in shadow and solitude. But of the few men and women remaining alive in the Deadlands, fewer still had journeyed below the surface and lived to tell it.

With a grunt, the Scout considered his fortune for having not encountered the creature alive. As he stepped over its hollow mantle, he spat into the beast's lightless eyes.

The evening was deepening when the lone man finally reached his Linkation: a slab of gray rock jutting upwards from beneath the earth. It was canted at a sharp angle, just enough to offer the figures huddled beneath it some protection from the elements.

They were dressed much as the Scout himself, clad in ragged cloaks and motley assortments of weather-beaten armor: a hauberk of steel rings, a breastplate of boiled leather, a single pauldron of rusted metal. Were it not for the general ruggedness of their appearance, they could almost have been mistaken for knights errant from an ancient fable, equipped as much for war as they were for travel.

Thunder echoed from the sky above. At the Scout's approach, one of the six knights stood and stepped out from beneath the stone shelter. He was the company's Captain.

Like the Scout he was tall and broad-chested, carrying himself with the assuredness of someone with a purpose to fulfill. On his back was a blade of considerable weight and size, and on his chest was borne a coat of arms stitched out of coarse linen.

"So," spoke the Captain, "how many?"

The Scout uttered a grunt from beneath his hood and wrappings. "Big camp," he answered, "Fifty strong. Maybe more. Can't be more'n a mile off."

"Did they see you?" asked the Captain.

The Scout responded by drawing an object from beneath his cloak and dropping it into the dust at the Captain's feet. It was a blood-spattered helm made of bone and boiled hide, decorated with garlands of yellowed teeth and human fingers.

"Only one," said the Scout. "I'd say best bet's to keep moving." Then, after a brief pause, "If you order it, Captain."

The Captain stood silent a moment, considering the question. He grimaced beneath the shadow of his hood, and his eyes lingered on the bloody helm at his feet. Its brow was marked with the insignia of a jagged, black spider.

Behind the Captain, his companions quivered. They were cold and tired and hungry, ready to shrivel into the storm at any moment. Worst among them was no more than a Squire, hardly fifteen years of age. She had taken ill only days earlier, and it was unknown whether she would live through the week. The girl lay at the center of the huddle, her clothes damp with sweat and her breathing labored beneath her wrappings.

The Captain cast a glance back at the huddle, and at the young Squire.

Again, the Scout spoke. "Your orders, captain? We move?"

But still the Captain was silent. He knew, as did the Scout — as did any of them — that to continue onward in these present conditions would be tempting fate. Many a weary traveler had been lost in the dustbowls, either suffocated or swallowed up by the unseen holes of the great, many-legged Sink-Worms.

And if not stumbling into an open pit or the mouth of a hungry beast, then there were the marauders to contend with: tribes of men that raped or ate or enslaved whomever crossed their paths. There were other monsters in the Deadlands just as frightening as the worms, and among the worst of them were men themselves.

The thunder continued to rumble its grievances from afar. At length the Captain answered, speaking slowly and clearly. "No. We stay." Then, turning back to his knights, he repeated it: "We stay."

As his voice reached them, a wave of relief broke over the Captain's company. The Squire, half-awake through the daze of her fever, shivered and wrapped her cloak more tightly about herself. The Scout was silent for another moment before giving another grunt.

"Your orders, captain."

At a word from their leader, several of the knights rose to shake the sand and cold from their joints. They began to unpack the makings of a flimsy bivouac shelter from their rucksacks, eager to shore up their rocky lean-to against the deadly storm.

Yet no sooner had they begun did the Scout stiffen. Once again he lifted his nose to the winds, head slightly cocked like a wary hound.

"Captain —"

But he didn't have to speak. The Captain already saw.

Out there, just beyond the squalls of flying ash, were the shapes of men. Not just two, or even three, but well over a dozen. They were shadowy, half-formed in the billowing sand and fading daylight. Though their features could not be seen at their present distance, their weapons certainly could be: clubs, spears, and jagged-looking blades. Weapons familiar to any who had encountered the marauding cannibals of the Deadlands.

The Captain froze, signaling his companions to a halt. Though not all of them saw what waited beyond the storm, they knew their leader well enough to sense something was amiss. For a long moment, they all stood cold and silent as statues. Not a single sound could be heard, but for the screaming of the wind and that ever-present growling of thunder.

And then came a distant voice, harsh as rock on bone:

"Out! Out! Come out, we see!"

A gesture from the Captain, and the knights slowly retreated beneath the shelter of the stone outcropping. Their silence was broken only by their collective pantings of weariness and fear. Seven pairs of well-practiced hands strayed to the hilts of their weapons.

Again came the voice. "Out! We see, and know!"

But still, the knights made no move to respond. The shadows of men drew steadily closer.

"Captain," hissed the Scout, "they're all around — front 'n sides —"

"Quiet," came the Captain's response through gritted teeth.

Closer came the shadows, closer, until they were no longer shadows but clear outlines of human beings. The Captain counted seventeen in total, enough to outnumber the knights nearly three to one. Their clothes, made of sack-cloth and battered leather, were stitched together by cords of tendon and hair. They carried spears fashioned from rock and bone, and one of them bore a bandolier affixed with bits of dry, human scalp. Upon their bodies and armor was a familiar-looking crest in the shape of a jagged, black spider.

The Pack Chief at the head of the group drew nearer to the outcrop of canted rock. At twenty paces afar, he was stopped by the sound of rattling steel as the knights' weapons were drawn. Now plainly visibly to them through the blowing sands, the man cocked his head to peer into the gloom. He was a creature of a human being, his hair growing in grotesque patches from a stubbly, scar-crossed scalp. His eyes were beady and black, and his flesh was marred with twisted patterns of decorative scar tissue. The smile that split open his face revealed a mouthful of brown teeth, all filed to jagged points.

"We see!" he chuckled in a voice thick with his own tribal accent. "No need to hide. We see. Scout of yours left trail even welp might follow!"

There was a moment of heavy silence among the knights. Motioning for the others to stand at the ready, the Captain finally took a step forward. He stood facing the Pack Chief and his company of warriors, none speaking a single word.

Once again the sound of thunder came rumbling over the hills, clearer now than before. A tremor ran through the earth, but the Knight Captain and Pack Chief were far too preoccupied with one another to take notice.

After a spell of taut silence, the Pack Chief spat into the dust to clear errant sand from his own teeth. Then he pointed to the dust by the Knight Captain's feet, at the leather helm the Scout had left discarded on the ground. Upon its brow remained the crest of the black spider, drawn in charcoal and dried blood.

"We notice," rasped the Pack Chief, "that you take life of ours. Wonder if you might exchange life of yours in place … as is fair, no?"

At this, the Knight Captain's fingers curled even tighter about the hilt of his sword. Despite the stinging of the windblown ash, he had hardly once blinked since the Pack Chief emerged into view.

All around them, the Pack Chief's circle of ragged warriors advanced slowly closer.

"No wish to kill all," hissed the Chief, eyeing the knights the way a predator might leer at cattle. "Perhaps lay down arms, and we speak in…"

He paused, as though the next word were something foreign to his lips.

"_Peace_."

Amongst the huddle of knights, the feverish young Squire continued to quake and shiver. The others remained hesitant, waiting anxiously on their Captain's order. Only the Scout, his sword at the ready, moved to step from beneath the shadow of the rock. Yet no sooner had he done so, something gave him pause. It wasn't the storm itself, but something else that came from within it — something which had been previously mistaken for thunder. The dust beneath the Scout's boots trembled.

"Captain…" began the Scout.

But he needn't have spoken. Both the Captain and the Pack Chief felt it as well.

There came a sound from deep below, like the moaning of some anguished beast. Ash began to cascade down the slopes of the surrounding dunes, shaken loose by the tremors. The Knight Captain stumbled, and the warriors of the Black Spider tribe began to shout and panic. They knew exactly what was moving through the ground beneath their feet.

Several of the knights cried out to their Captain, and the Pack Chief of the Black Spiders whirled to his own underlings with an order to fall back. His shout was drowned out by an ear-splitting _roar_ as the earth itself began to shift and shake. Not forty paces away from the knights and their shelter, the ground opened up and fell away. In a single instant five of the Pack Chief's men, along with the sand they'd stood upon, were swallowed up the black depths of the earth.

And from the pit rose something vast and sinuous, twisting and snaking through the ash like an angry serpent. It broke through the line of tribal warriors, scattering their limbs like sticks in the wind. Its body was sleek and dark, composed all of segmented plates and countless, writhing legs. Its tail was barbed, its belly was a shade of reeking yellow, and from its head bulged a set of eight wet, glassy eyes. The sundered earth bellowed the arrival of the Sink-Worm, as the creature's hungry mouth descended upon the Black Spider tribe.

It took the Pack Chief first, snapping him up in its dripping mandibles as he attempted to rally his terrified warriors. Next came any pikemen who dared score its armor with their feeble weapons. By the time the Sink-Worm had set its gaze on the Knight Captain, the rest of the tribesman had begun to flee.

The Captain scrambled to his feet, having been knocked supine by the worm's tumultuous emergence. Behind him, the Captain's knights remained frozen in place beneath the shelter of their rock. Only the Knight Scout seemed able to move, surging forward with a roar of the Captain's name. The worm, however, was one step ahead, lunging forward with jaws eager to clamp down on the Captain's skull —

But in one well-practiced motion, the Captain sidestepped the beast and swept his weapon from beneath his cloak. He swung his sword with a roar equal to the quaking earth, and with a might that could bring a mountain to its knees. The blade tore straight through the Sink-Worm's tender belly, and with a burbling hiss of pain, the creature fell in two cloven pieces. Each half of it writhed in the dust, spilling its own pulsing guts out across the sand. The pincers clicked and the legs writhed, but the worm finally fell still. The Knight Captain stood poised and tense all the while, gore sliding off the edge of his blade.

When the worm stopped twitching, he lowered his weapon. The Captain was still panting when the Scout reached his side. There were no words exchanged between the two men, only grim looks from beneath their shadowed hoods. The sound of the wind rose once again, as the shifting of earth subsided beneath them.

Both the Captain and Scout each peered into the distance, but in the growing darkness it was nigh impossible to see how far the Black Spider warriors had fled. At the least it seemed none of them were brave enough to turn back, and for that the Captain was silently thankful. He regarded the darkened horizon — then the body of the Sink-Worm — then the great hole in the earth — then the bloody bits of corpses scattered across the ground.

Then, wiping blood from his greatsword, the Captain returned to the rest of his knights. The Squire continued to shiver, her frightened eyes peering out from beneath her hood.

"We're moving out," said the Captain. "Now."

At this the knights wilted, knowing full well what they faced in a journey through the darkness of night. Yet nonetheless they rose, following the Captain's order with hardly a show of hesitation. As they each gathered their meager belongings, the Scout drew the Captain aside.

"Dark out there," the Scout said in a voice too low for the others to hear. "Gonna be hard to make it through the night…"

He trailed off, seeing the intensity in the Captain's expression.

"We're moving out," the Captain repeated. "You have one minute."

A momentary silence from the Scout. Then, after spitting sand from his teeth, there came a low grunt of, "Your orders, Captain."

Hardly a minute later, the weary knights had emerged from beneath their makeshift shelter with cloaks and weapons secured tight. The Captain led them onward through the howling sheets of dust, vanishing into the chaos of the storm. They left nothing behind them — not even footprints, which were swept away by the winds. Occasionally these same winds would part the Captain's cloak and touch the red lion emblem upon his surcoated chest, and the sight of it would give the knights a faint spark of reassurance. Far ahead, it almost seemed that the storm may break and that the sunset might peek out from behind the clouds of ash.

But it was only an inkling of a hope, and the night grew ever darker.


	2. Chapter One

**Part I: Link**

* * *

Chapter One

It was midday, and Link was out scavving the Deadlands with Uncle. They had not always done this together; in fact, it was only until rather recently that Uncle began to insist on Link's accompaniment. Link himself was only twelve, but as far as Uncle was concerned, twelve was more than old enough to venture out into the desert.

Not that Link disliked foraging through the old abandoned villages and crumbling ruins. To him, it was quite the thrill. He often pretended that he was a brave adventurer like the ones Auntie told him of in bedtime stories — men in search of priceless treasures, like Artorias the Brave and his Warriors of the White Circle. Uncle always scolded Link for climbing to the peaks of houses and hills, but Link just couldn't resist the excitement of it, the feeling of might and courage that accompanied the wind and the horizon. It must have been that same feeling, he mused, which drove men like Artorias on their own quests. Someday, Link promised himself, he would gather his own Warriors Ten and venture out across the desert. Someday he would wield a sword and slay a monster and maybe, if he pleased, steal a kiss from a beautiful maiden.

But it would not be that day, because Uncle was calling him again to climb down from the rooftop.

Link slipped through a hole in the rotted thatch, careful to avoid catching his elbows on any splinters or rusted nails. The inside of the old farmhouse was dark and cool, its bowed frame having long ago trapped decades-old traces of moisture and rot. As he dropped back down into the gloom, the boy found himself facing his Uncle's disapproving gaze.

"Link," said Uncle sternly.

"Sorry, Uncle," replied Link meekly, wilting a little under the older man's frown. He quickly tried to turn away, but Uncle grasped him tightly by the arm.

Uncle was a tall man, or at least Link thought so despite having seen very few other men at all. He had sun-browned skin, dour eyes, and a head of shaggy blonde locks which he shared with his nephew. If he smiled at all, it was a seldom occurrence. His face was well-worn, less by age than by day-to-day toil, and his scraggly beard was streaked with gray. Uncle knelt beside Link, his eyes boring into his nephew's.

"What have I told you about climbing, young man?" he asked quietly.

Link hesitated, afraid to look in Uncle's eyes.

"Do you remember?" asked Uncle.

Link answered meekly. "I remember you said not to."

"If you remember, why were you on the roof?"

Link had no answer. His arm throbbed where Uncle's fingers dug into his flesh, but after a moment his constricting grip loosened. Uncle rose to his feet, pointing to a rotting cupboard on the house's dilapidated Eastern wall.

"Finish up over there," Uncle commanded before turning to resume his own search. Link could tell from the weariness in his voice that Uncle was growing disheartened by the heretofore futility of their efforts — and a scavving trip had to be very futile for Uncle to feel disheartened at all. Like he always said, scavving was far easier when you learned to be satisfied with nothing. Uncle was good at being satisfied with nothing, which was why it worried Link to hear the dejection in his voice.

As he plodded to work, Link rubbed at his arm. Part of him was hurt by Uncle's harshness, but another part of him knew exactly why Uncle was upset. After all, Link had been told many times what kind of people lived out there in the desert. They were people he was fortunate never to have met; people who, as Uncle said, might see a little boy all alone on a roof and start to follow him from a distance. They would pretend to be friendly and maybe promise him food, only to snatch him up and steal him away. According to Uncle, those people were hungry too — but unlike Link's family, they had no qualms about the things they ate.

"The bad people," Link had taken to calling them.

Their family was not a family of bad people, that was something Link knew for sure. The emptiness of his own stomach told him that much. Perhaps, thought Link, that was the real reason for Uncle's irritability. Perhaps he was just hungry. He and Link had been scavving on-and-off for three days, yet still they hadn't found a single speck of food to replace their dwindling rations back home.

Yes, that was it, thought Link as he knelt beside the house's decaying cupboards. Uncle wasn't a cruel man at all. He was just hungry. Just like how Link was hungry, and little Aryll was hungry, and how Auntie especially — given that she was "eating for two," as she liked to say — was hungry.

Link grasped the edge of a cupboard door and pulled. Its doorhandle had worn off and its hinges had long ago rusted stiff, but the decomposing wood flaked away in soft, pulpy pieces. As he scraped at it, the images of food passed through Link's mind. Perhaps waiting for him beyond the door was a forgotten store of dried ash-yams, or at the very least a nest of termites. With those ideas in his head, Link gave a final tug on the door. It crumbled away, and the damp scent of mildew came rushing out to meet his nostrils. He peered into the cupboard, hoping for the best — but inside he found nothing but a single, moldering shelf.

Link couldn't help but sigh. He rose from the floor, brushing dirt from his knees and trying not to feel disappointed. Yet again, Uncle's words echoed in his mind: "It's easier when you learn to be happy with nothing."

Link hadn't quite learned that lesson yet.

As he stepped away from the cupboard, he felt a sharp twinge as something sharp on the floor snagged one of his clothbound feet. Link sounded his pain with a small yelp, and plopped to the ground in order to inspect his bleeding foot.

But as his rear end struck the bed of cinder which made up the floor, Link heard the gentle reverberation of something hollow — _thud_. Blinking, the little boy wondered what the sound could possibly have been. After a moment of puzzled hesitation, he lifted his bum off the ground and once more let himself drop.

And there it was again — _thud_.

His curiosity piqued, Link scooted himself backward. Beneath him, half-buried under dirt and ash, was a wooden panel from which protruded a crooked iron nail. On the tip of the nail was a spot of red wetness, where he'd pricked his foot. Careful to avoid piercing his palm, Link began to scrape away at the debris covering the wooden panel, and little-by-little his efforts revealed a set of rusted iron hinges. There was a handle as well. Judging by appearances, the door had remained rather dry and well-preserved compared to the rest of the house.

Link rapped his knuckles against the wood, listening for the hollow sound that had come before. The floor sounded its response: _knock-knock,_ _thud-thud_. The excitement of discovery rushed back to Link, and his previous reservations about hope and expectations vanished. he whirled back to Uncle.

"Uncle!" the boy called out eagerly, "I found somethin'!"

Uncle rose with a skeptical frown on his face. "What?" he asked.

As he approached, Uncle's expression shifted. His disbelief became surprise, and then that surprise quickly turned to apprehension. He knelt beside the panel on the floor, and Link moved aside to give him a closer look. Link watched with bated breath as Uncle gently brushed aside the dust.

"It's a door, Uncle," whispered Link in anxious anticipation. "Where d'you think it goes?"

Uncle didn't answer. He grasped the door's creaky handle in one hand and gave it a pull. It held stubbornly fast. Another heave, and the door came open with the painful grind of rusted metal. Both Uncle and Link were left staring into a yawning, black hole in the floor. There was a tiny staircase leading downwards into the dark, but little else could be seen beyond that.

"What is it?" asked Link in a ragged whisper.

"Wait here," replied Uncle softly. Then, quietly as he could go, he descended the creaking staircase into the darkness. Link watched until the shadows swallowed him up completely. He could hear Uncle rooting around belowground, shifting and stepping and muttering to himself, but Link could see none of what Uncle was really doing. After a several long, agonizing moments of waiting, Link could remain silent no longer.

"Uncle!" he hissed into the gloom. "Uncle, what'd you find?"

It was another few moments before Uncle emerged. When he did, Link noticed something different in his eyes — a kind of brightness, the kind of which he rarely saw. Uncle had a smile on his face.

"Come here," said Uncle, only halfway emerged from the underground hatch. He waved Link closer, and his nephew hesitantly obliged. Uncle held out an object in one hand, which to Link appeared to be a bunch of shriveled red things in a jar of milky water. The jar was old and dusty, and though wilted, its contents appeared otherwise unspoiled.

"What is it?" asked Link cautiously.

"Try 'em," said Uncle, his smile remaining. "Open it."

Link gripped the lid of the jar, and after a brief struggle he popped it open. A strange smell came wafting out from within, which made Link wrinkle his nose.

"_Eugh_," he grimaced. "It smells funny."

"That's okay," chuckled Uncle. "It's called vinegar. It's supposed to smell funny."

When Link hesitated to sample the newfound discovery, Uncle decided to show the boy for himself. He dipped his fingers into the jar, drawing out one of the shriveled red things and taking a large bite. It seemed to taste just fine judging from the expression on his face, so Link warily took the object from Uncle and bit into it.

It was strange — not quite sweet, but not quite bitter, either. There was a sour tang to the thing that offset its mushy texture in a rather pleasant way. Link blinked in surprise, having not expected the flavor.

"It's _good_, Uncle!" he exclaimed in excitement. "What are they?"

"Yams, Link," said Uncle, rising fully from the trapdoor and sitting cross-legged on the ground. "Just like Auntie tries to grow in the ash. Looks like someone went and pickled 'em not too long ago. Maybe half a year or so. Got a whole cellar full of stuff just like it."

"Mm," was all Link could reply as he finished the slice of yam Uncle had handed him. He reached for another, but Uncle stopped him with an outraised palm.

"Ah-ah," he tisked. "Can't eat 'em all. We've gotta save these for Auntie and Aryll."

Link knew he was right. "Yes, Uncle," he sighed, trying not to feel disappointed. Uncle must have seen his nephew's expression, because after another moment he gave a sigh of his own.

"One more. That's all," he said, holding the jar out to Link. Link took another slice of yam and devoured it hungrily, savoring the peculiar taste.

Uncle capped the jar and tousled Link's scruffy hair, then tucked the pickled food into his own burlap rucksack. "Here," he said to Link, unslinging the sack from around his shoulder and placing it in his nephew's arms. "You take a look down there and fill this up as much as you can. I'll be givin' this place one last look, okay?"

Link nodded, perhaps a little too eagerly. Uncle, stern but still smiling, raised a cautioning finger. "No more," he warned. "We have to save it, okay?"

"Yes, Uncle."

Uncle rose and returned to the far end of the abandoned cottage. While he did, Link hooked the rucksack around his neck and hurriedly slipped into the darkness below the floorboards. Ordinarily he might be frightened of such a place, but the thought of food was more than enough to bolster his courage.

The cellar was dry and cool, and though it had none of the mildewy must of the rotted cupboards, there was a staleness in the air that was nonetheless unpleasant. Link groped his way through the shadows, his eyes slowly adjusting to find shelves upon shelves of dusty glass jars, not unlike the one in Uncle's rucksack. With his mouth watering, Link began to pick through them one-by-one. He could only assume what was inside of each, given that none were labeled, but he recognized many of them as the same orange-red yams that Uncle had shared. Link had to wonder when someone had last opened that door, and how long the food had been here. Where had it come from, and who had it originally belonged to? He hoped that it wouldn't be missed — it would be cruel to steal food from another hungry person.

But then again, Link reflected, perhaps someone had left these jars for people just like he and Uncle. Maybe someone wanted them to be found after all. After all, not _every_ person in the Deadlands could be one of the bad people. If Link's own family could be good, than it stood to reason that other good people might be out there too. Maybe they were willing to share?

With those thoughts in his mind, Link began to stuff Uncle's bag full of as many jars as could fit. He hadn't gotten very far, however, when the sound of Uncle's footsteps came barreling down the cellar stairwell.

"Uncle," began Link, "d'you think the person who left these here wanted someone else to find 'em? I mean—"

Then he saw the panic in his Uncle's eyes.

"Come on," hissed Uncle, grasping his nephew by the arm. "We have to move. _Now_."

"But —"

Link had no time to protest. Uncle hauled the little boy nearly right off of his feet, dragging him up the narrow stairwell and out of the cellar. He hesitated at the top of the stairs. Then he turned and slammed the cellar door shut, trying to hide it beneath as much dirt and cinder as he could.

"Uncle…" began Link, frightened and utterly confused.

"Shh!" hissed Uncle, ushering Link out of the crumbling farmhouse. They stumbled out into the brightness, and Uncle squatted low to the ground. He signaled for Link to follow his lead."Keep low," he whispered, "and hurry!"

The sun was blinding after the prolonged murkiness of indoors. Daylight was at its peak, and a sweltering heat radiated from the scorched earth. Link squinted at his surroundings, his eyes taking a few moments to adjust to the brightness. They were in a crop field, or at least what may have once been one. It had long ago been picked bare, and the only remaining hint of the field's past function were the fenceposts staked into the arid ground. Beyond the fence ahead of them, the lands became rocky and uneven. Behind them, the fields of ash stretched on and on into vast nothingness.

Wondering what had alarmed Uncle so deeply, Link gave a quick glance over his shoulder. When he saw what Uncle had seen, his breath nearly caught in his throat.

Across the charred terrain he could see people — and not just several people, but an entire company of them. They were trundling across the desert amidst a cloud of dust, easily less than a quarter kilometer away. They didn't seem to have seen either Link or Uncle, and their features were difficult to discern at their present distance. Nonetheless, they were drawing swiftly and perilously closer.

"Come on!" said Uncle again, gripping Link by the shoulder and hauling him along. Link turned away from the company of people, struggling to keep up with Uncle's rapid pace. The burlap sack full of jarred food clanked about his knees. The two of them crept hastily over the gravel and ash, ducking behind large rocks and slip-sliding down the rolling hills. They hadn't gone far when the bark of a loud voice came from behind. Link's blood went cold. Had they been spotted?

Uncle, hearing the voice, seized Link in his arms and scrambled the last few meters toward a shallow depression in the earth. They slid feet-first down the incline, coming to a scraping halt at the bottom, and for several long minutes they remained perfectly still. Link was wrapped tight in Uncle's embrace, and he could feel the rise and fall of the older man's chest with each labored breath. The expression on his face frightened Link; Uncle was terrified.

Another sharp retort of a voice echoed not far behind them.

Uncle held Link closer, saying absolutely nothing. Link knew well enough not to speak. They waited and waited, but nothing came. After long enough, Uncle's grip on Link slackened. He set the boy aside to lay on his back, and pressed a finger to his own lips.

"Don't move," he said in a low voice, "I'm going to take a look."

Link nodded, trying his best to swallow his fear. He watched as Uncle slowly crept up the slope to peer over the lip. He did nothing but observe, though occasionally he might shrink lower as if to keep from being spotted. Link, unable to help himself, inched his way up the embankment toward his Uncle's side. Uncle placed a hand on his shoulder to keep him low, but was either too distracted or too frightened to scold Link's disobedience. Taking his silence as tacit approval, Link peeked out from their little hiding place.

There in the distance stood the cabin Link and Uncle had been scavving. It was a lonely place, squatted low to the ground and almost completely isolated — a prime target for anyone in search of food or shelter. Approaching it was the caravan of people, wreathed in a cloud of stirring dust. Their harsh voices floated across the field, and through the haze Link could make out the details of their appearance.

They were of one tribe, that much was easy enough to tell. At the head of the pack strode what seemed to be warriors, men clad all in bones and leathered hide. They bore scars like macabre badges of honor. Adorning everything they carried, from their tattered banners to the very flesh on their bodies, was the same totemic symbol: a crooked, _black spider._

Trudging after the warriors came the pack slaves, unclothed and heaving enormous burdens upon their flayed backs. Supplies, ostensibly, though several of them carried what looked to be fresh corpses. The burden-bearers were urged on by slave-drivers, brutally snapping their whips and chains across the slaves' bare skin. Occasionally the head slaver would let out a harsh shout, directing the prisoners to either hasten or stop.

Finally, bringing up the rear of the crowd were the slaves unfit for labor: children and pregnant women, completely naked save for the shackles on their wrists and feet. They were walking corpses, all skin and bones and blank, broken expressions. The sight of them made Link feel sick.

"Uncle," whispered Link to his Uncle, "who are they?"

"Quiet," answered Uncle, pressing Link lower into the ground. "Don't move."

Another shout rose from the caravan as it drew nearer to the distant cabin. The group plodded to a halt, and with a shift in their ranks, two men emerged from the tattered crowd of warriors. The first of them was a thin, withering old man with a mane of gray hair. In one fist he clutched a handful of leather thongs: leashes for three gaunt, mangy-looking hounds. The second man was a hulking ogre of a human being, with a shaven head and a face full of grisly bone piercings. Upon his chest he wore a breastplate of dinted iron, the only metal armor visible amongst the entire group.

The two men spoke, and Link could only wonder at what they were discussing. When they had finished their conversation, the ogre-like man gestured to several of the other warriors, and together the group of them moved toward the rickety farmhouse. A thought passed through Link's mind, and he was suddenly seized with cold fright.

"Uncle," he asked quietly, "are they gonna find our food?"

Uncle could only curse gently under his breath.

They waited, watching, dreading the loss of their newfound cache. The hounds snuffled and snarled. The slaves shifted and coughed. Link's own breathing came so heavy, he thought the marauders might hear him even from afar.

Then, suddenly, the hounds began to bark and bay. Cursing all the more, Link's uncle pressed his nephew flat against the gravel, but it quickly became apparent that the commotion wasn't due to the duo being spotted. Something else was occurring within the mob of shackled slaves. From where he lie, Link could just see over the ridge of the slope. In the distance, not fifty meters away, the wall of slaves parted and a figure emerged from the crowd.

He was tall and shirtless, his bare torso as heavily-scarred as his grisly cohorts. Upon his brow he wore a headdress fashioned out of human bones, and drawn in charcoal on his face was the black visage of a skull. With one hand he clutched at the gray hair of an elderly slave woman, hauling her after him like the carcass of a butchered animal. She struggled meekly to escape from the skull-faced man's grasp, but to no avail. He responded to her struggle by baring his teeth in what must have been a smile, but there was nothing in his expression other than primal, sadistic glee. With his grin and his painted face and his crown of bones, it occurred to Link that this man looked like some kind of a demon; a nightmare born out of the stories Auntie would read to Link and his sister.

The skull-faced man hurled the slave woman to the ground and delivered a swift series of kicks to her ribcage and head. Link winced at her cries of pain. Then came the cackling jeers of the Black Spider tribe's warriors. Link had never seen such a display of violent debasement, but as much as he wanted to look away, he couldn't help but watch.

"Uncle," he whispered breathlessly.

Uncle had no response.

The old slave tried to crawl away from the beating and the laughter, dragging along what seemed to be a broken leg. Whether it was a fresh injury or an old one, Link did not know. The skull-faced man kicked dirt in the slave's face, then drew a crooked, cruel-looking blade from his hip. He raised it above his head, presenting it to the other warriors. They cheered and laughed. Link's eyes widened as he realized what was going to happen.

"Uncle—!"

"_Shh!_"

The skull-faced man straddled the slave, once again grabbing a fistful of her hair. He pulled, jerking her head upwards and arching her neck. The poor woman was battered into a gruesome pulp, her face swollen purple and her lips dribbling blood. Link heard her cry out once more as the tip of the scimitar found her neck. Then the skull-faced man opened her throat from ear to ear.

Uncle covered Link's eyes a moment too late. In the moments that came immediately after, Link could not see the cheering raiders. Nor could he see the skull-faced throatcutter lap the blood from his own blade. He had, however, seen the expression on the slave's face. That was an image which would live with him for a long time.

The next minutes were like a haze to Link. After a time, the ogre-man and his cohorts emerged from the house again. They were carrying nothing with them other than several armloads of scrap wood, and Uncle exhaled in relief at the knowledge that the Black Spiders hadn't discovered the cellar full of pickled food. The dead woman, for her part, was scooped up by another slave and carried off to only God knew where. The throatcutter, after licking his blade thoroughly clean, vanished with the ogre-man into the crowd. Soon, the slavedrivers' whips were lashing once more, and the entire company went shambling off on their way. Uncle and Link watched as they slowly faded into the distance, the cloud of dust trailing after them like a poisonous exhaust.

Once the final sounds of shouting had faded, Link turned to his Uncle.

"Those were the bad people, weren't they?" he asked in a voice that was still a whisper. "The ones you and Auntie keep telling us about."

Uncle closed his eyes and let out a small sigh. His expression was grave and distant. "Yes," he answered, "they're the bad people."

Link pondered a long moment, remembering the cellar full of preserved food. "But," he asked, "not _all _people are bad … are they?"

At this, Uncle glanced down at Link, blinking at the question. He searched his nephew's face for a long moment, then gave a small and sad smile. He drew Link close, embracing him tightly. Then he gestured to the sack of scavenged food, still slung across the boy's shoulder.

"Come on," said Uncle, "let's go get that food."


	3. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

They lived in a small cave beneath a hill, its entrance hidden from prying eyes within a shallow, winding gorge. They'd called the place home for nearly six years now — practically as long as Link could remember — having stumbled upon it in shortly after Link's parents had passed, and when little Aryll was still only a baby. At that time, Auntie had supposed that the little valley had been scoured into the earth by a Sink-Worm, and that the cave itself was once the creature's burrow. None of them knew for sure, but one thing was certain: if the place had previously been home to anything, man or beast, its former occupant had long since abandoned it. All that remained was the well.

It may have once been a small sinkhole, as when they'd found it, the well was little more than an open hole in the ground. Auntie and Uncle had since fortified the lip with a narrow ring of stones, fearful of their children accidentally falling to the bottom. Though the water within was muddy and brown, the family had since learned to filter it through gravel and linen. Auntie would boil it every night over a small fire, using an iron cooking pot Uncle had scavenged from the wastes. Whatever they didn't keep to drink, they used either to bathe or to irrigate the scraggly root vegetables in Auntie's ash garden.

As for the garden, it had been dug in a broad section of the gorge where the sun might give its crops ample nourishment. It yielded a pitiful harvest, but even the occasional wrinkled ash yam was something for the family to be thankful for.

It was in this garden that little Aryll was now knelt in the dust, absent-mindedly playing with a ragged doll made of straw and hand-stitched burlap. She was a sprightly young girl by the age of seven, with her brother's same head of pale blond hair. Her eyes were wide and brown, and upon her face was the gap-toothed smile of a child that didn't yet understand the troubles of the world she lived in. Aryll sang as she played, her voice ringing high and clear over the barren ground.

"Straw Sally's walk-in' along a-way across the sand!" she trilled, bouncing her dolly's legs across the ground. "Straw Sally's look-in' for a far an' dis-tant land!"

Her frayed little doll had been fashioned by Auntie nearly a year ago, in an effort to give young Aryll something resembling another friend. As inseparable as the girl was from her brother Link, she was forbidden from accompanying him and Uncle on their scavving errands in the wastes. "Perhaps when you're older," Auntie would often say. Aryll would bawl and protest, but in the end she would resign herself to her little world within the cave and the gorge. The ash garden was as far from home as she was permitted to go, and so here she would spend her days playing in the filth with Straw Sally.

"Straw Sally, dun-no what she's gon-na find out there!" Aryll sang, prancing her dolly between the garden's yam mounds. "May-be get a brush so she can fin-al-ly comb her hair! _Yay!_" She raised the dolly into the air, miming a joyous leap over one of the mounds, but as she lifted her gaze she spied two dusty figures ambling into the gorge. Little Aryll's eyes came alight with excitement at the recognition of her uncle and older brother.

"Uncle!" she cried, her tiny voice echoing throughout the gorge. "Uncle, Uncle! Did ya find anything?" Aryll bounced to her feet and rushed to greet them, but as she drew close she saw Uncle press a finger to his lips. Even in their little place of seclusion, they had to be careful not to draw unwanted attention to themselves. Aryll covered her mouth with both hands, then hissed more quietly, "Did ya find anything?"

"Couple things," Uncle said with a dry smile. "Close your eyes and I'll show you."

Aryll obeyed, clapping one hand over her eyes.

"Now gimme your hand."

She obeyed again and extended her open palm, but as Uncle placed a glass jar of pickled food in her tiny hand, Aryll couldn't help but peek through her fingers.

"You like it?" asked Uncle.

Aryll seemed unsure, blinking down at the dusty jar in confusion. "What is it?"

With a sigh, Uncle rested a calloused hand atop his niece's scraggly head. He handed his burlap rucksack to Link, then brushed past Aryll. "Your brother will tell you," said Uncle wearily, "Uncle needs to go talk with Auntie now, okay?" Uncle then looked to his nephew, his tone becoming more grave. "Link — take Aryll and the food inside."

"Yes, sir," said Link, watching as Uncle went on ahead. Their encounter with the men in the desert seemed to have woken a kind of melancholy within the man, weighing upon his shoulders and turning his legs to lead. The children trailed behind him, and Link took Aryll by the hand in an effort to distract her from Uncle's distress.

Aryll had already forgotten all about the jar Uncle had handed her. "Did ya see any Sink-Worms out there, Linky?" she asked, practically skipping with excitement. "Auntie was tellin' me all about how — how, uh, once, there was a _big old giant one!_ And it came and ate up a big tunnel un'erground!"

"Wow," said Link, trying to smile at his little sister and simultaenously keep an eye on his uncle. Aryll continued to prattle on, oblivious to the anxiety shared by her elders.

"And she was sayin' that's, like, what our well is, too! A big, watery bug tunnel! Or, uh, it used to be! Isn't that wizard?"

"Yeah, Aryll," replied Link somewhat distractedly, "that's pretty wizard."

They rounded a bend in the gorge, and their cave came into view. Auntie was outside at the well, hauling water up from below with the crude pulley system they'd erected upon a set of crossbeams. She lifted her gaze from her work as her family drew into sight, and raised a hand from atop her pregnant belly to wave. Her hair was rimmed by the orange rays of the setting sun, and for a moment Link thought she looked serenly beautiful. Then a gray wisp of cloud passed between Auntie and the light, and the moment passed with it. Uncle stepped toward her, and as they began to speak, Link quickly tugged on Aryll's hand to lead her inside.

"C'mon," he said to his sister, "let's go see what else Uncle got us."

"Okay," chirped Aryll, following obediently. Then she held up the duty jar Uncle had previously handed to her. "What's this?"

"It's food. Uncle says they're put in something called vinegar," said Link. "Keeps 'em good longer than most other stuff."

Aryll strained to pop the lid from the jar. When she finally had it off, she wrinkled her nose in displeasure. "It stinks!" she cried.

Link smiled again. "Yeah," he said, "it sure does."

* * *

That night, the children built a small fire near the mouth of their cave. They ate a sparse meal alone beside the smoldering coals, listening to an anxious argument between their elders outside. Link didn't have to hear every word to ascertain the general shape of the conversation: they had been discussing the men which Link and Uncle had encountered in the desert. Them, and the immediate danger they posed. The discussion evolved into a debate over the wisdom of remaining in the family's little homestead. Uncle wished to stay, while Auntie had set her mind on leaving. She had always been deathly afraid that the "bad people" might discover the family — more frightened than even Uncle — and Link had sometimes wondered at the reason for her fear. If she had encountered the men of the desert before, she did not say, but she and Uncle often became very grave when questioned about them.

Link now understood their fear. His thoughts briefly turned to the old slave woman from the desert, and to the Throat-Cutter with a face painted in the visage of a human skull.

A gentle sob came from outside the cave, and Link heard Uncle speak the name "Therese." They only exchanged names when the situation was grave, else-wise they were simply "Auntie" and "Uncle." Straining his ears, Link caught something of a question from Uncle. It sounded like:

"What about the baby? What about food?"

To which Auntie replied, through apparent tears, "We'll ration it. We'll find a way."

Link's heart sank at the sound of this. The family was already accustomed to rationing their meals, and tonight was no different from any other. Even with their newfound stores, neither Uncle or Auntie allowed the children to gorge themselves. Link wasn't particularly inclined to the idea of tightening his belt even further.

Link's attention fell on his sister, sitting quietly at the other side of the fire. Little Aryll had a sad look on her face, and Link knew she could hear the conversation just as well as he could. She heaved a sigh, absent-mindedly waddling her straw dolly across the cave floor.

"I'm hungry still," Aryll pouted in dissatisfaction.

"Me too," said Link, "but that's all we got for tonight, Aryll. Uncle says we gotta make it last." Link prodded at the fire with a stick, stirring the embers and releasing a cascade of sparks into the air. He tried to ignore the arguing voices emanating from outside.

Aryll clutched her dolly tightly for comfort, blinking at the cave entrance. "Are we gonna have to leave?" she asked.

"What makes you say that?" asked Link, trying to feign ignorance.

"'Cuz that's what Auntie and Uncle are fighting about."

"They're not fighting," said Link quickly. "They're just talking."

"But they're yelling."

"Grownups yell at each other when they talk. That's just how it goes," Link lied. Even as he spoke, he was frowning. He truthfully couldn't remember the the last time Auntie and Uncle referred to each other as "Therese" or "Darenn," let alone the last time they had raised their voices at one another.

"I don't wanna leave," said Aryll.

"We're not gonna leave," sighed Link, though he did not know if that were true.

Aryll fiddled anxiously with the dolly's stitched-on eyes. The little girl looked small and scared to Link, and there were tears welling in her eyes. "I don't wanna," she repeated with a quivering voice. "Sally likes it here."

Link's own anxiety came spilling out in the form of hot anger. "We're not gonna leave," he snapped, "now quit crying and just play with your doll."

He instantly regretted the harshness of his words. Aryll turned away and gently cried into her dolly, trying to hide the tears from her brother. After a moment, Link scooted over to her and hugged her close until her tears subsided. The voices of Auntie and Uncle continued to chatter, unabated.

"Hey," said Link, drying Aryll's tears with his sleeve. "You wanna hear a story?"

Aryll sniffled and wiped her nose, then she nodded her head. "Okay."

Link paused to think, trying to dream up something that might comfort the little girl; something from the stories Auntie would often tell them before bedtime.

Perhaps he would tell her the story of Devil Jones and the Kraken, in which men voyaged upon great bodies of water called seas? No, that tale was too frightening for Aryll, and it would be too difficult trying to explain to her what a "sea" even was. Perhaps, then, the story of Artorias the Brave? No, she had heard that one too many times already. It had to be something grand and hopeful, something to take away her fear and her hunger and tears. A smile crossed Link's face as the shape of a particular story coalesced in his mind. It had once been his favorite, though Auntie hadn't spoken of it since he was much younger, possibly even before Aryll was even born. Link sat back, holding his sister on his lap.

"Okay," he said, "how about the story of Hyrule?"

Aryll nodded again, still wiping her nose. She was no longer crying, instead sitting alert and attentive. Link turned so that they were both facing the fire, and began in a low voice:

"So it all started a long, long time ago. Back then there weren't any deserts, and there weren't any sandstorms. There weren't any Sink-Worms or bugs or monsters to dig tunnels under the ground. There were big fields of growing, green things. Trees, and fruits, and carpets called grass. There were giant puddles of water called lochs and seas, which were so deep you could never, ever touch the bottom. All the people in the world could grow all the food they could eat, and nobody was ever gonna be hungry or have to fight over food."

"What's grass like?" Aryll cut in, her eyes wide and awestruck.

Link paused, not having expected a need to explain his story in further detail. "Uh," he stammered, "well, I think it's this stuff that —"

"How can puddles get so big? Who spilt the water there?"

"Well —"

"Did they eat the grass?"

Link sighed, all of his prior enthusiasm suddenly leaving him. "No, Aryll, they didn't eat the grass," he said, "now lemme tell the story."

No sooner did the words leave his mouth did Link realize that the arguing of his aunt and uncle had ceased. "Link, don't be short with your sister," came the voice of his aunt. approaching from behind. "And _you_, Aryll, are not supposed to interrupt during storytime."

Link turned to see Auntie approaching, padding across the stone floor of the cave on bare feet. She was younger than Uncle by several years, with pale skin and a head of tangled auburn hair. Though decades of worry had aged her beyond her days, she still carried herself with a certain kind of natural poise and grace.

"Auntie!" said Aryll, reaching out for an embrace. Auntie eased herself onto the floor and took Aryll in her arms, resting the little girl against the swell of her pregnant belly. "Link was tellin' me a story," said Aryll, cuddling close.

"So I heard," Auntie smiled back, brushing hair from her niece's eyes.

Link studied Auntie's face a moment, searching for signs of lingering distress. If there were any at all, she had done a fine job of hiding them. Still, Link was not fooled. "Hey Auntie," he said, "where's Uncle?"

"You were fightin' again!" cried Aryll with childish candor.

Auntie sighed. "No, we weren't fighting, Aryll. We were just talking. Uncle's just gone on a walk to think."

Link cast a glance back at the cave entrance. Uncle was nowhere to be seen.

"We're not gonna have to move again, are we?" Link asked in a low voice. He still remembered what life was like before Aryll's birth, living as a desert nomad without the security of the cave or the well. His memories of his mother and father were hazy, but the sharp pains of hunger and dehydration were all too clear.

Auntie was silent for a while, staring into the dying embers of the fire. "No," she said after some time. And then, "I don't know. This place has been good to us. We got water here, and that's not easy to find. But…"

She trailed off.

Aryll reached out and poked a small finger at Auntie's belly. "Uncle once told me we're not goin' anywhere 'til the baby comes out!"

A solemn smile crossed Auntie's face, and she once again ran her fingers through her niece's blonde hair. "That's what Uncle wants, Aryll. I don't know if it'll work like that. Not everybody can get everything they want, no matter how bad they want it."

This time it was Link's turn to be silent. Once again, his thoughts turned to the Throat-Cutter with the painted face of a skull. Finally, in a quiet voice, Link asked, "Is it 'cause of the people we saw out there today? The bad people?"

Auntie said nothing. The little fire crackled and shifted.

"Hey," piped up Auntie after some time. "You two wanna finish the story? The _real_ story? About Hyrule?"

"Yeah!" Aryll chirped excitedly, wrapping her little arms around her dolly.

Link nodded, himself eager to take his mind off of troubled thoughts. He retrieved one of the pickled food jars from the rear of the cave, handing it to Auntie to eat. She took it with a smile, then wrapped her arms around the two children and drew them both close. Then, with their attentions raptly on her, Auntie began her tale.

"All right," she said. "Now. Picture a tree — a real tree, Link, not the dead things you see out in the desert. It's tall and strong, with green leaves and big, thick branches…"

Link pictured it in his mind, closing his eyes and letting the image come to him. As the story came to life in his imagination, Auntie's words continued:

"Now picture something growing on those branches. Something red and round and shiny, bigger than your fist. If you plucked that thing off the tree and bit into it, it'd be sweet and sour and delicious. Can you picture that?"

"What is it?" asked Aryll breathlessly.

"That's called an apple, Aryll. They used to grow everywhere, and all sorts of people used to eat them. See, this story all started a long time before either of you were born. A long time before I was born, too. Or your uncle. The whole world was young, and green, and alive. There were great bodies of water called lakes and seas, which were so deep that no one alive could reach the bottom. The air was sweet, and the ground was so rich it could grow anything you planted. Apples. Corn. Wheat…"

"Yams?" asked Link, thinking suddenly of Auntie's ash garden.

"Yams, Link, yes. Not like those wrinkly ones we have now. They were healthy and fresh, and there were enough of them for everyone. Enough of _everything_ for everyone. See, back then people had no reason to fight each other, or kill each other, or make each other unhappy. We were kind. We lived together. We called that _peace_."

Link found himself engrossed in his aunt's words, the story slowly coming back to him piece-by-piece. For a moment his hunger faded, the cold cave around him disappeared, and he felt himself living within this past world — climbing the trees, smelling the morning dew, tasting a freshly-picked apple.

And then a question came to his mind: "What happened to it all, Auntie?"

Auntie sighed, the gleam in her eyes dimming. The dying coals of the little fire seemed to fade even further. "Well," she said slowly, "I don't think anybody really knows."

"Why not?"

"Because everyone had a reason they thought was right, and no one could say for sure. Some folks said the sun burned everything away. Some folks said it was the old gods punishing us for our pride. Some folks said the earth just split open, and all the bad things that ever were came spilling out of the underworld. Then some folks said maybe it was _people_ who made the world go wrong. But before too much longer…"

Auntie trailed off, reaching out and taking a tiny pinch of warm ash from beside the fire. She let it slip between her fingers.

"Before long, this wasn't a world meant for us anymore. The crop fields turned to ash, and the seas went dry, and almost everything died. And when it was over, all we were left with is what we have now. Just the Deadlands, and the great beasts that live on nothing but stone."

A heavy silence fell on the children and their aunt. Link felt himself suddenly and incredibly empty, as if Auntie's words had taken something meaningful from him. He tried to articulate the feeling, but all that he could think to say was simply, "That's … sad."

Auntie nodded in somber agreement. "It is, Link. It really is," she said. Then she gave him a small, playful smile and tapped him on the nose. "But that's not the end of the story, is it?"

"It's not?"

"No, it's not. Now…" Auntie hooked an arm around Link's neck and rested her chin atop his head. "Now picture the desert, okay? A big, dry field. Nothing living. Ash everywhere. But you wanna know something about that ash?"

"What?"

"It's fertile. It lets things grow. And one of these days, sooner or later, you're gonna find something growing in that ash. No, not like the garden. Something actually growing. Something small and green, with little leaves and pink petals. A _flower_."

Link, who had never seen nor heard of such a thing, was puzzled. "Why?" he asked. "How?"

"Because," answered Auntie with another smile. "Because some people say there's still a place way across the desert — way up North, past the very edge of the world. A place that's still alive, where green things still grow. Where there's an old kingdom called _Hyrule_, and a castle that was never touched by the drought or the fire."

Link's eyes were wide and unblinking. "What is it?" he asked. "The place. What is it?"

"It's where people can call home," said Auntie. "Where life can still grow. And one of these days, the bells of that old castle will ring, and we'll hear them all across the world. The Knights of Hyrule will march across the desert to make everything right again. And that old thing called _peace_? It still exists, Link. It's out there — you just have to find it."

Silence fell on the cave like a smothering blanket, and the glow of the embers seemed to finally die. Link could say nothing, his imagination still spinning at the thought of everything Auntie had just told him.

"And that, my dear," sighed Auntie, "is the story of Hyrule."

She shifted to prod at the fire with a stick. It was well and truly burnt-down, far past the point of saving, but none of them seemed to mind — least of all Aryll, who had long since drifted off to sleep. Auntie smiled at the little girl and kissed her forehead, then layed her down on the pallet of straw which the children called a bed. Aryll continued to clutch her dolly tightly.

Auntie turned to Link, the comforting smile still on her face. "Your turn," she said. "It's past that time."

Link obeyed, lying himself down beside Aryll and allowing Auntie to pull a grimy blanket up to his chin. But even as he resigned himself to sleep, the thoughts still tugged at his mind. "Auntie," he asked quietly, "is it true?"

"Hm?"

"The story. Hyrule. Is it true?"

At this, he saw Auntie's smile waver. The expression returned nearly the instant it vanished, though it seemed somehow thinner and more transparently hollow.

"Good night, Link," she said. "It's time for you to go to sleep. Okay?"

"Okay."

Auntie kissed Link on the head, as she'd done for Aryll. "I love you," she said softly. Then she rose and strode quietly out of the darkened cave, leaving Link alone with thoughts of providence and peace, of gallant heroes and ringing bells.

"Hyrule," he whispered to himself quietly.

* * *

Above the family's cave there rose a hill, and at the top of that hill stood the husk of a dead tree. It was one of the few Link had seen standing in the Deadlands, and though its limbs were grey and leafless and wizened with age, they were still sturdy enough to support the weight of a little boy. Sometimes, when the sun was high and he wasn't preoccupied with scavving, Link would climb his way to the tallest branches.

Auntie liked that no more than Uncle did. She would worry about a branch snapping beneath Link's feet, or that he might slip and fall. Then again, reasoned Link, she always worried about everything. He saw no harm in climbing, so long as he was careful. Besides, he'd be able to see any danger coming from miles away — that is, if he wasn't distracted by daydreams. He'd usually peer out across the desert, trying to imagine all the incredible things that might lie beyond the empty horizon: mountains, seas, green pastures and dense forests.

But on that day, at that moment, Link was envisioning something different: castles and kings, knights in shining armor, all of them marching with banners and swords. He strained to see past the lands that lay before him, his heart filled with a yearning for something he could not quite place. It almost seemed to Link that sense of yearning had always been there, and that Auntie's story the night before had only just reawakened it.

The wind whistled in his ears, and Link thought he heard a faint voice calling out his name from below. He reluctantly tore his eyes from the ashen vista of the Deadlands and scurried down the tree. When he reached the bottom, he slipped down the hillside and peered into the rocky gorge. His aunt was waiting below, her forehead damp with sweat, balancing a wooden pail of water atop her head. She did not look altogether pleased with him.

"Link, you answer me when I call you," Auntie scolded.

"Sorry, Auntie," Link apologized, secretly hoping she didn't realize why he was at the top of the hill. Then he asked, "What is it?"

"D'you know where Aryll went? She was supposed to help me strain the water."

Link gave a shrug, unsure of the answer. "I think she's probably playin' in the garden," he guessed sheepishly. "Uncle's out scavvin' for firewood, and I think he told her to wait there."

From his vantage point, Link saw Auntie heave a sigh. She muttered something under breath about firewood, then lifted her gaze back to Link with a frown on her brow. "Listen," she said, "can you see them from up there?"

Link's eyes lit up at this, and he nodded in vigorous affirmation. "I've been lookin' the other way, but yeah," he said. "I can see all the way past the garden if you want!" Without waiting for further approval from his aunt, he turned and began clambering back up to the crest of the hill.

"Be careful," Auntie called after him, "and don't climb too high!"

Link listened about as well as he was accustomed to, and slowly made his way into the uppermost branches of the dead tree. Huffing vigorously from the effort, he shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted closely into the gorge down below.

What he saw made his blood run cold.

"Do you see them?" asked Auntie.

Link didn't respond.

Auntie asked again: "Do you see them, Link?"

Still, Link couldn't speak. His grip was tight on the tree limbs, and if Auntie could see his face, she would most certainly see an expression of frigid dread.

"Link," called out Auntie, "what do you see?"

* * *

"Straw Sally's walk-in' along a-way across the sand!" sang Aryll as she bounced her dolly between the yam mounds of Auntie's garden. "Straw Sally's look-in' for a far an' dis-tant land!"

Playtime habits were something of a ritual for Aryll, ceremonies to be practiced and repeated _ad nauseum _until she had exhausted every shred of enjoyment from them. Link would often tease her for getting lost in her own imaginary dream-worlds, forgetting all about her surroundings and becoming, in his own words, "a big doofus dummy."

But Link wasn't here right now, so she could get lost in her imagination as badly as she so pleased. "Straw Sally, dun-no what she's gonna find out there! May-be get a brush so she can fin-nal-ly comb her hair! _Yay!_"

Aryll raised her dolly high into the air, miming a joyous leap over one of the yam mounds — but as she raised her attention from the ground, she heard the sound of footsteps crunching against gravel, and felt the presence of a man approaching. Aryll smiled to herself, wondering if Uncle had found any other interesting treasures out there in the desert. He was early, so he must have found something.

"Hey Uncle," piped Aryll from where she knelt in the dust, "Auntie used to like singin', right? You think me an' Sally can get her to sing again?" She craned her neck upward to face her uncle, her eyes squinting through the blinding sun.

But as the girl's vision adjusted, her expression of dreamy-eyed joy vanished.

Standing over her was not Uncle, but a man with a bare torso strewn with ugly scars. A crooked iron blade hung from his hip, a headdress of bone sat atop his head, and his face was painted in the ugly visage of a human skull. The Throat-Cutter of the Black Spider Tribe smiled broadly, baring a mouth lined with filed, brown teeth.

"Hello," he said.


	4. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

He had always been such a stubborn boy, willful and obstinate. When Daren or Therese gave their nephew a command, they had come to expect the exact opposite of him. Many a time had come when they had been forced to discipline the boy, either with sharp words or the even sharper cuff of a hand — but always, without fail, he seemed to disobey.

Therese had often wondered if it was some fault of her own, perhaps a laxity in proper discipline. She was, of course, the one prone to scold rather than strike. She was the one who coddled and kissed bruises and washed hair. And as she hauled Link into the darkness of their cave, fleeing the terror of whatever might pursue, she had to wonder: did she somehow make her nephew into the person he was? Or had he simply been born that way?

_I told you not to climb_. _I told you so many times_.

She shunted the thoughts to the back of her mind. "Inside! Come!" Therese cried, tightening her grip on Link's wrist.

"But Auntie—" he gasped.

"No, Link! Not now!"

She had intended the words to be forceful and commanding, but the panic rising in her throat turned her voice shrill and wavering. Therese hadn't the breath to say the words which lingered at the edges of her thoughts.

_Do not disobey me. Not now._

She took him deeper inside, groping her way through the dark. A cramp was beginning to knot itself in her side, and she clutched at her ample belly in an effort to stifle the pain. Sweat trickled down her brow, down her back, down the inside of her thigh. For a moment a spike of cold fear shot through her as she suddenly wondered if the baby was coming. The thought settled in her mind, sharpening her panic into dread.

The baby.

_What about the baby?_

But she hadn't the time to process the thought before the two of them came upon the spot. It was a shallow pit in the ground at the rear of the cave, which Daren had dug some four or so years in the past. Much of what the family stored inside were non-perishables: canned ash-yams from the garden, jars of scavenged foods, and various other oddments that had been sun-dried for longevity.

Therese hurriedly furled back the canvas tarpaulin from the hole. Link watched, quivering, as his aunt scrambled to remove the provisions from within.

"Auntie?" he stammered, unable to remain silent for very long.

She didn't answer. Without looking up, she stuffed the supplies into one of Daren's burlap scavving bags. She'd prepared for this moment for years, dreading the day she or her children might have to flee the rustic comforts of their cave under the hill. Her stomach throbbed with the ache of tightened muscles. The thought from before remained, lingering like the aftertaste of something rotten.

_What about the baby?_

"Auntie," repeated Link, almost too terrified to speak, "Aryll is still—"

"I know."

"—still out there by the garden, where—"

"_I know!_"

Link flinched at the sting of her scream, turning his face away to hide his tears. Suddenly, looking at him then, Therese was reminded of how small and thin and frail he was, his pale skin stretched far too thin over his bones.

_I told you not to climb, I told you so many times — but you're still just a boy and you don't know any better._

At this, Therese's heart cracked. Her anger dissipated, and in its place came flooding in the fear and bitter helplessness. She drew the boy closer, holding him as they both wept in despair. They remained that way for what seemed like minutes.

Then, as terror gripped her once again, Therese took Link by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. She trembled down to her core, but for her nephew's sake she steadied her voice and tried to appear strong.

"I need you to listen to me. Okay?" She raised the knapsack full of supplies, shifting it into Link's grasp. "You need to take this, and you need to start running, and you can't stop until you're far away."

"I —"

"_Far away_. Do you understand me? You can't come back. You can't even _look back _'til you know you won't be able to see this place. Okay?"

Link heard all of her words, but their meaning seemed almost lost to him. "But…"

Therese silenced him again by pressing the ragged sack firmly into his arms. It took every fiber of her will to hold her own poise.

"Link," she said again in a bare whisper, "these men that are coming — they're not like us. They don't care about what's right or what's wrong. They don't care that you're just a little boy. If they catch you, they will do _terrible things _to you. They will hurt you, and then they will kill you, and then they will eat you. Do you understand me?"

Link could only muster up a weak nod, almost too terrified to even think.

"Then you know why you have to run, don't you? I—"

At this, Therese's composure cracked once again. _I do not want that for you_, she wanted to say, but she couldn't bear to finish the sentence. The thought of that fate befalling her own flesh and blood was more than she could bear.

Link, too stunned for either words or tears, could only clutch the knapsack and stare at his weeping aunt. He wanted to comfort her and be comforted in return, as he had on nights when they all slept shivering with empty stomachs. He wanted to hold her, to touch her hair, to wrap his small arms about her neck and simply let his presence soothe her grief.

Yet there was nothing he could do.

When stillness returned to Therese's countenance, she lifted her gaze to Link and brushed his unwashed hair from his dirty face.

"Please," she said. "Just go."

What finally came to Link's lips was a question:

"Auntie — aren't you coming with me?"

But to this, Therese had no response. She knew that what the marauders sought more than anything were people: warm bodies for the pleasure of raping or devouring or enslaving. If she fled with Link and the cave was left vacant, the mens' search would widen. They would know that there were victims unaccounted for.

But if at least one person remained behind…?

Therese drew Link close and embraced him tightly. "Remember. Don't stop. Don't come back. Don't even _look _back. No matter what you hear."

"But I'll see you again, won't I?"

"I love you so much."

"Won't I?"

The distant sound of a shout came floating into the cave, and Therese trembled at the realization that they had run out of time. She once again took hold of Link and ushered him out into the sunlight, the burlap sack of provisions clanking and clattering about his waist. Already the voices were approaching: indistinct snarls and shouts that echoed between the sloping walls of the valley. Within minutes, maybe less, the men would be upon them.

"Now listen to me," said Therese, "you climb back up over the hill, and once you're on the other side—"

"But—"

"Once you're on the other side—"

Another harsh cry in the distance. Then a raucous chattering that sounded almost like laughter. Therese thrust Link forward, crying out one last time for him to _run_.

And run he did, scrambling on all fours up the valley's gravelly embankment. The knapsack, too large and loose for Link's small frame, weighed awkwardly about his shoulders. He crested the slope after what felt like an agonizing effort. Tightening the strap, Link pressed on past the embankment, past the lip of the hill, past the wilted trunk of his favorite climbing tree — and then down once more, sliding painfully on his backside down the hill's opposite slope.

He landed clumsily on the fragmented scree at the bottom, spilling the contents of his knapsack across the ground. One of the pickled yam jars cracked open, and with a gasp Link hastened to recover it.

But even as he picked through the bits of broken glass, he heard them.

The men came loping into sight just as Link lifted his eyes from the stony ground. There were two of them, bent and almost bow-legged, with shaven heads and sun-blistered skin. They were hardly more than sixty meters away, almost hidden from view by the jutting rocks that encircled the base of the slope. Rags of leather were draped about their shoulders and hips, and in their hands they clutched spears made of wood and bone. Painted in charcoal upon their flesh was a familiar eight-legged symbol.

For a moment one of them cocked their head in Link's direction, and it seemed to the young boy that he'd been spotted. Then the man — a rangy-looking creature with one missing eye — turned back to his companion and quietly muttered something.

Quickly and silently as he could, Link darted away on all fours, leaving the shattered jar and its contents to bake in the afternoon sun. His mind was a whirl of scattered thoughts — ought he flee? Fight? Perhaps try to reason with them? Would they kill him on sight, or would they keep him alive long enough to amuse themselves?

_They will hurt you, and then they will kill you, and then they will eat you_.

But no, they hadn't yet seen him. If he stayed hidden —

How, though? Should he continue to crawl, staying low to the ground as Auntie and Uncle had always taught him? Or would the clattering of the rucksack alert them?

A sudden noise. One of the Black Spiders spoke again, this time with a raised voice.

Link's heart leapt into his mouth. Clutching his bag and what remained of his provisions, he scuttled several more meters and then tucked his thin frame between two sun-scorched rocks. A hiding place, albeit a pitiful one.

As he heard the approaching crunch of footsteps on gravel, Link silently prayed that his own thundering heartbeat wasn't also audible in the ears of two men. Their footsteps halted, and Link clasped both hands over his mouth to stifle the sound of his own panting.

A mere five meters from where Link cowered, the tribesmen approached the base of the gravelly slope. The one with both remaining eyes pointed upwards, toward the trail of dust which Link'd descent had left along the embankment. The one-eyed man took a step forward to squint closer, but let out a bark of pain as his foot crunched down on the broken yam jar Link had abandoned.

Link winced at the sound, squeezing his eyes shut. Auntie's words came to him again:

_Don't come back, don't even look back, no matter what you hear, don't even look_.

The Black Spiders crouched to inspect the fragments of glass in the dust, as well as the moistened earth beneath them. The two-eyed man lifted the broken jar from the dust, sniffing it carefully before probing at its contents with his tongue. He grunted in a language foreign to Link, then gestured to his one-eyed companion.

They fell strangely silent, and their silence unnerved Link even more than the sound of their voices. He strained to listen, but all he could hear of the two tribesmen were the faintest hints of footsteps. They were parting ways, it seemed — one of them receding into the distance, further up the slope perhaps, while the other set of footsteps drew ever closer.

Link pressed himself deeper into his pitiful hiding place, until his shoulders were pinched tightly between the two boulders. He ached, and he wept, and he squeezed his eyelids shut in the hopes that what he could not see could not hurt him.

When he opened them again, a pair of hairy, sunburnt legs stood directly within his field of vision. If he just reached out with one hand, Link could have brushed the gnarled toes with his fingertips.

The boy's heart nearly stopped, and a cold chill spread throughout his chest. The man attached to the legs let out a hoarse shout in that same strange language, and in that instant Link knew without a doubt that he had been discovered. There was a moment that seemed to hang suspended in time, as Link waited for the man's ugly face to descend into view.

Then another shout answered from far off, and the pair of legs loped away.

It took several long moments for Link to realize that the one-eyed man attached to the legs hadn't seen him at all. For the second time in mere moments, he had been saved by sheer, blind luck.

Yet even after the footsteps had faded, Link refused to move. He could hardly even bring himself to breathe easier. It was only later that he finally stirred, and it wasn't courage that compelled him. It was a sound, one which filled him with a sensation of icy dread. Until then everything seemed to be happening in a dreamlike fog, but at that moment the reality of it all now became fully and horrifyingly clear.

The sound came again, and with it, the memory of aunt's words: _don't come back_. _No matter what you hear_.

It was the sound of a not-so-distant and all-too-familiar voice.

It was the sound of Aryll's scream.

* * *

Therese was unable to tear her eyes away from her nephew as he fled. As she watched him disappear over the slope of the little valley, she spoke a silent prayer in her mind:

_Don't look back. Don't come back. Please don't see_.

Again, the sound of harsh voices echoed from further down the ravine. They were here, and within moments they would be upon her.

Therese turned back toward the mouth of the cave. In her haste she nearly stumbled into the family's open well, but caught herself on the coarse length of rope attached to its drawing pail. Still clutching her cramped stomach, she shambled her way into the darkness of the cave.

There was an axe Daren kept in the back, fashioned out of wood and stone. He had used it on past occasions to strip kindling from dying trees, though the scarcity of them now had led to the tool's retirement. Therese found it wrapped in filthy linen, its blade chipped and worn. As she held it she couldn't help but think of the tool's earliest uses, years ago when she and her husband still lived among a tiny community of likeminded wayfarers — some of them kin by blood, others only in spirit. Therese's sister had lived among them too, though Link was hardly five and Aryll was little more than a newborn.

Therese and Daren were almost children themselves then, her hardly fifteen years of age and Daren little more than twenty. Had they even married yet? she wondered as she gripped the worn haft of the axe. Maybe not. It hadn't mattered then. What did it mean to take a man's name when either one of you may die on any given day? Even now — especially now — the very idea of marriage seemed almost trivial, an antiquated tradition from a long-dead world. Yet some time after their little family had been lost —

_After they'd all been killed._

— After that, they'd decided it was a tradition they wished to uphold.

_Link_, she thought.

Tears once again threatened to bubble up from within her, but Therese clamped down on her feelings like a vice. No — there would be time for sorrow later. Perhaps not time for her, but time at least for him, so long as she did what she had to.

And Aryll…? What of her? Therese thought of Link's words, his small voice wavering and frail: "_Auntie … Aryll is still —_"

She knew.

"_— still out there by the garden where —_"

She knew. All too well, she knew what sort of fate awaited a young girl who found herself in the midst of those —

_Animals._

_ — _those men with the banner of the Black Spider.

Her sister's face appeared in her mind. A surge of rage pulsed through her, and Therese's grasp tightened on the axe handle. Another holler came from directly outside, and she rose to face the shape silhouetted in the entrance to the cave.

It ambled forward, its eyes shining wetly in the darkness. There was an eager expression on the man's shaven, sunburnt face, and he let out an exclamation of excitement at the presence of the woman before him. His voice rang out through the cave, and for a moment Therese's joints locked up in terror. The man turned to bark something out in the harsh dissonance of his own language.

"_Woman_," Therese thought she could parse from the gabble, in what little of it she understood. Another pulse of rage, an unconscious instinct that cut through her fear. Therese lunged while the man's head was turned, and the axe came down solidly at the junction of his neck and collarbone. There was a soft _crunch _of breaking bone, and he crumpled to the cave floor with a shout.

One of his hands closed reflexively around the haft of the axe, wrenching it from Therese's sweating palms as he fell. She stood in dumbfounded awe at the blubbering, writhing thing below her. Then another shout, louder and more urgent, shocked her out of her momentary stupor.

A second man appeared in the mouth of the cave, followed closely by a third. A fourth.

The fear returned, and with it all of the aches that the sudden violence had driven away; cold sweat and overdrawn muscles and a throbbing, pregnant belly. Therese bent clumsily, gripping the axe that was still embedded in the first man's flesh. He howled again, and there was an instant of squeamish hesitation before Therese forced herself to pull the blade from his cloven neck.

He swiped at her frantically, catching one of her ankles. She fell with a clatter of the ragged axe, landing hard on its upturned blade. A jolt of pain shot through her as it bit deep into her chest, its jagged edge punching neatly through two ribs. For a stunning moment she felt as though the breath had been torn straight from her. Therese wanted to scream in pain, but all she could manage was a haggard gasp.

The men at the cave entrance laughed.

They shifted, moving toward her. The one on the cave floor had already released her ankle, both hands returning to his neck in a vain effort to staunch the steady ooze of blood. Therese gasped again, tears springing to her eyes. She felt the baby move, and a sickening agony spread slowly throughout her body. Mustering every ounce of strength she had, Therese shifted her weight and clawed for the weapon still buried in the flesh beneath her left breast. With a trembling hand, she pulled the bloody axe loose. Adrenaline dulled her pain, lending her the strength to force herself up onto one knee. She brandished the axe.

"Stay away!" she declared with as much volume as she could muster. "Stay the fuck away from me!" Her voice rasped like wind across desert sand.

But still the men inched closer, jeering amongst themselves even as they warily kept their distance from her. Before long a wall of their bristling spears bore down on Therese, and the man with the cloven neck had fallen still.

Then the throaty snarl of a voice came from outside, and the raiders halted. Their spears lowered and their ranks parted, making way for yet another to descend into the cave.

He was enormous and ugly, an ogre of a man with a shaven head and a face pierced with ornaments of bone. Unlike the others, dressed all in the tanned hides of what could only have been men, the ogre wore an iron breastplate pockmarked with dents. Paying no heed to Therese's raised weapon, the ogre calmly pushed through the crowd to stand before her.

"Stay back!" she stammered, already feeling her strength ebbing. "You piece of shit—!"

The Ogre seized hold of the axe's wooden handle, wresting it violenty from her grasp. His knuckles cracked solidly across her face, and Therese felt a warm _pop_ inside of her mouth as several teeth broke. The metallic tang of blood on her tongue.

For the next few moments all was a blur, and she was only vaguely aware of the stinging pain in her scalp as she was hauled along by a handful of her hair. Of that sickening pain still lingering within her wounded side. When she came to her senses she found herself outside, bent over the side of the well with blood dripping off her chin. Hands were tearing at her skin and hair and bloody clothes, and in a moment of profound horror Therese knew exactly what was happening.

She screamed and fought, only to find her face pressed all the more painfully against the hot ring of stone. The ogre's weight pressed down on her, his elbow on the back of her neck, his black eyes gleaming in his pale face.

A broken voice called out from somewhere — "_Stop, please_" — and she instantly knew it as that of her husband.

"_Daren!_" she cried out, twisting her neck to see him. "_Daren!_"

Lifting her eyes, she saw her nightmares suddenly realized. There, in the desert valley which her family called home, stood a circle of gaunt, appalling figures bearing weapons of rock and bone. There were twelve of them or more, heads shaven and burnt red from the sun. Each of them in some way bore an eight-legged crest upon their bodies, either painted or carven into flesh or woven into their ragged clothes with black threads of human hair. Among them were three emaciated, mange-ridden hounds with thongs of leather clasped about their necks. The beasts paced and growled, their eyes reflecting the same hungry bloodlust as their keepers.

And on the ground before Therese, bloodied nearly beyond all recognition, was the father of her unborn child. His knees had been smashed backwards, his face was a pulp, and the scalp had been cut from his skull. All of this, and he was still alive.

"Daren," Therese sobbed, feeling coarse hands on her arms and legs and breasts.

There came another soul-piercing scream, but not from her. Looking past the broken body of her husband, Therese's eyes came to settle on a small and familiar frame.

_No_. _Please, no, if there is a God I beg you, no…_

Aryll was pale, filthy with ash, her tiny hands grasping at the limbs of her straw dolly. At a glance she seemed unharmed, but her harrowed eyes revealed the depths of the horror she had already seen. She was in the clutches of the same man who held the hounds' restraints: a small and withered old creature with a white beard and a long, whispy mane of hair.

"Please," Therese could only cry, withering inside.

Almost as if in answer to Therese's pleas, the old creature called out. The groping hands retracted, and there came more speech in a grating language she could hardly understand. The Ogre seized her again by the hair and dragged her across the ground on ragged knees. She was deposited roughly beside her husband in the blood and dust. The pain of her wound was so great, she felt she could vomit.

Daren gazed at her through swollen, bloodshot eyes, and his broken jaw worked painfully to form words: "_I'm sorry._"

The Ogre in the iron breastplate exchanged hushed words with the old man. The elder gave a small nod. Then, handing his leather cords off to one of the younger men, he took Aryll by the hand and quietly led her across the valley toward her aunt and uncle.

At the outside of the circle, pacing like one of the starving hounds, was a shirtless figure with a headdress of bone. Drawn in charcoal upon his face was the black visage of a skull. At his waist hung the bloody rag of Daren's scalp, and his fingers flexed over the hilt of a sheathed scimitar — the same blade young Link had witnessed slit the throat of a crippled slave woman.

At a gesture from the ogre, the Throatcutter stalked forward. He lifted a stone from the well and placed it on the ground, then knelt reverently as the ogre eased the old man down to sit. Therese's breath was frozen in her throat as she watched the elder draw Aryll closer. The girl squirmed and cried, until finally the elder shushed her into silence. He stroked her hair with yellow, untrimmed fingernails.

"Don't touch her!" Therese tried to scream, but she was only able to choke the words through the blood pooling in her mouth.

The ogre strode forward and once again struck Therese across the face.

Both Aryll and Daren cried out again, and the old man seated on the rock spoke sharply. At the sound of his voice, the Ogre reliquished.

Aryll sobbed, unable to tear her eyes from her uncle. The old man gently wiped the girl's cheeks, smiling at her with a tenderness that made Therese's skin crawl.

"Is this your daughter?" he asked in a voice that creaked like dead wood.

The elder's hounds growled and salivated. Aryll continued to cry, her hands wringing at Straw Sally. "Auntie," she whispered falteringly. Therese could give her niece only what she had ever tried to: a measure of comfort in the midst of a cold, bleak reality.

"It's okay, sweetie," she stammered through broken teeth, "Aryll — honey — _it's okay_."

The old man eyed Therese strangely, not with lust or malice, but with a certain kind of pity. His gaze returned to Aryll, and he brushed a strand of hair from her tear-streaked face.

"Niece, is she? She's a fine young girl," he said in his dry, drawling voice. "Real healthy. You must've raised her good." His eyes lingered on Therese's naked belly. "And you had another on the way, too," he murmured almost to himself. "Yeah … you must be good folk."

"Auntie," whispered Aryll again, "I'm scared, Auntie."

Her wound seeped, and she gave a cough that expelled blood from deep within her throat. Simply breathing was becoming a laborious task.

Seeing the blood, the white-haired elder pointed to Therese's wound. "A shame, that. Looks bad. I hope young Rhys didn't do that to you," he said, narrowing his eyes at the Ogre with the faceful of bone piercings.

The Ogre named Rhys towered over Therese, his dark eyes lingering on her nakedness. His nostrils flared, and his gaze burned with some kind of primal desire that made her stomach churn. He remained eerily still and silent.

"Would've preferred to keep you alive, if we could. Like your niece here," continued the old man. "Don't like killing women, you see. Especially if they can … well." He trailed off, his gaze lingering on her naked belly.

Therese understood perfectly well that such mercy was no act of kindness. If death were her only alternative to being bred like a dog, then she would happily let death take her. But…

_But Aryll_.

The elder shifted, quietly letting his eyes rove over the entirety of the family's tiny dwelling: the cave, the well, the withered tree upon the hill. Then he shifted, turning his gaze back to Therese and touching a hand to his own emaciated breast. His ribs were practically white against the flesh. "My name," he said, "is Elder Smith. And these are my boys." He gestured to the blighted company of men all around. "I wanted to talk, while we still could. About your home. I was just wondering…"

He pointed with one crooked finger.

"Is that really a _well?_"

Still, Therese had no words. If Daren was capable of speech beyond pained, faltering groans, he did not answer. The old man observed their silence a moment longer, then made a small and dissatisfied sound — "Hm."

He beckoned the Throatcutter closer and murmured something into his ear. The Throatcutter nodded and rose, approaching the well once more. As he lowered the drawing pail into the hole, the old man nodded almost amiably at Daren and Therese.

"Very valuable, that. You're lucky," he said. "You could maybe build a whole army around that, let alone a family." He ran his tongue across his own parched lips, his eyes shining eagerly. The expression passed momentarily, and he resigned himself to sucking on his own crooked teeth. "Maybe."

While the elder spoke, the skull-faced Throatcutter lifted the dripping pail from the well. He raised it to his lips and drank, only to spit a stream of brown mud back into the dust. With a grunt of displeasure, he cut the pail loose and returned it to the elder named Smith. The old man peered down at its contents.

"Oh," he blinked in disappointment. "_Mud_."

He sighed, tipping the pail to let a trickle of brown sludge spill out at his feet. His hounds strained against their leashes to lap at the puddle.

"Guess I should've known. Hard to come by, good water is," Elder Smith sighed. He turned to Aryll, raising the bucket as if to show her. "You don't actually drink this, do you, girl?"

Aryll's wide eyes darted from the elder to her aunt. Her face was white, and her lips trembled.

"Don't talk to him, Aryll," Therese hissed through her pain. "Don't —"

Therese's words were silenced as the Ogre Rhys pressed his foot into the small of her back, driving her face into the dust. Elder Smith gestured for Aryll to continue.

"W-we … I mean … Auntie uses it to water the ash garden," the little girl stammered as tears traced paths down her dirty cheeks. "We grow yams sometimes…"

A thin groan rose above the hissing of the wind and the sound of Aryll's little voice.

"Was a … a sinkhole … from the worms…"

It was Daren, struggling to speak through a shattered jaw.

"Sprung water … we filter it … with stone n' burlap…"

He stared up at Elder Smith from where he lay on the ground, his eyes pleading behind his disfigured face. "P-please," he moaned. "Take the well … take _me _if you want. Just let my family go. I'm beggin' you…"

Elder Smith's brows furrowed once more. He dropped the empty pail into the dust, and his hounds went berserk. They snarled and fought over the tiny patch of mud, until the man holding their leashes had to once again whip them into submission.

When the beasts finally fell silent, the elder spoke.

"I don't need your dirty water, mister," he said grimly. "Nor do any of my boys. Might suit your little family, but it's no real use to us. It's _rotten_. Understand?"

"You can filter it — boil it—"

"And get half a bucket's worth out of a full day's work," Elder Smith interrupted. "We know how it goes, mister. More trouble than it's worth."

Therese's eyes darted frantically from her husband to Elder Smith. Her wound throbbed. Daren was quaking, his fists balled, tears mingling with the blood on his face.

"_Please_," he whispered again, more emphatically. "I'm _begging_ you."

Elder Smith was quiet for a long time. Finally, he spoke again: "What are your names?"

Daren worked his pulverized lips, but all he could force through his pain was a groan. The old man eyed him a moment longer, his brows furrowing.

"Well, Mister No-Name," said Elder Smith, "I'm afraid I can't help you."

A dam burst inside of Therese, and she buried her face in the ashen earth to scream. Aryll covered her face with her dolly, unable to bear the sound.

"_Please!_" Daren cried again, but the elder's expression did not change.

"You don't know how many times I've heard that word, Mister," Elder Smith said. "_Please_. _Don't do this_. _Have mercy._" His foggy eyes lingered on the tree atop the hill — not looking at it, but to some kind of vague abstraction that lay beyond it.

"We tried it other ways before, you know. A long time ago. We had a leader who … well, he was what you'd call a good man. Decided we weren't gonna eat folk. Weren't gonna kill folk. He didn't even want us to rob folk. Elder Roark — that was his name."

There was a deep, haunting melancholy in Elder Smith's eyes.

"We cooked him up and ate him, because he couldn't feed us. That's what happens to good men in this world." Elder Smith's gaze lingered on Aryll, his eyes ever distant. "So I'll be a bad man. I'll allow murder and rape and things you don't even want to imagine. And I'll do it every day to make sure my boys and I can survive. So our people can function. Understand? So we can have something — some kind of hope — to hold onto in this fucked up, godforsaken place we call a world. Even if that something's more rotten than your water."

The elder's gaze fell to the threadbare scrap of cloth drawn about him. Like the men all around him, it too bore the woven pattern of the Black Spider. "We all need that something, you see," he said softly. "Otherwise what's the point?"

"You're an animal," Therese whispered hoarsely into the dust. "You're insane!" Flecks of blood sprayed from her lips with each labored exhalation.

"Yes, maybe I am," said Elder Smith sadly. "But then, look at this—" He pointed with a ragged, yellow fingernail to the surrounding valley: the hill, the tree, the well, Aryll. "Look at how you're living. It could never last. Not for you. Not for a community. Not in this world. Maybe that's just the nature of folk. I don't know."

The somber expression remained in the elder's eyes.

"Maybe we're all bad men at heart. You'd kill me too, just to live another day."

Therese wanted to feel rage once again. She wanted to thrash and scream and draw blood, to show him that he was right. But all she could feel was despair; the bleak finality that everything she ever knew was going to end, and that there was nothing she could do.

Elder Smith remained a moment longer, lost in his own self-reflections. Then he sighed and spoke a word — a name, perhaps — in his own tongue. The Throatcutter rose from where he knelt beside him. The old man bade him a command, from which Therese could only understand the word, "_Take_." A crooked smile spread across the Throatcutter's face.

He took Aryll in his arms without another word, pinning the little girl beneath his filthy armpit like a cheap bundle of kindling. She thrashed and screamed in tearful panic, her ragged straw dolly falling into the dust. Therese clawed at the sand and ash in desperation, feeling the gash in her chest tear even further — that soul-crushing pain deep inside of her — but she could not escape the weight of Ogre Rhys. Too much strength had been bled from her already, and her vision was already beginning to waver.

"_No!_" Therese tried to scream, but even her voice had grown faint.

Again, the white-haired elder eyed her with a sort of despondent sympathy. Then he nodded at Ogre Rhys and spoke another command — "_Do, quickly._"

The Ogre delivered kicked Therese directly in her ribs, and she felt the horrible pain of something twisting inside of her.

_What about the baby…?_

The cannibals laughed. Elder Smith was silent. His hounds, their leads returned to his grasp, bellowed and howled as though in response to some nearby presence.

Darkness pulsed in and out of Therese's vision, in tandem with the pain. Blood ran from her torn organs, from between her lips, from between her thighs. The last she heard before losing consciousness was the baying of the dogs — the shouting of a voice in that grating, barely-intelligible language — "_Up there! Boy!_"

Then darkness took her.


	5. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

As Link crept back up the hill toward the little valley he called home, the sound of his sister's scream once more came to his ears. The blood froze in his veins, and he stopped dead for a moment before hastening his scramble upward. Whether courage compelled him or mere foolishness, he did not know. All he knew was that his baby sister was in danger, and that he'd abandoned her to a fate crueler than Auntie dared to even speak of.

"_Don't come back_," she had said, "_don't even look back, no matter what you hear_.

He knew he was wrong for disobeying, that he very well may be diving headlong into certain death. He was young and small and there were so many more of them than him, but —

_But I'm sorry Auntie I can't, I can't run away, not on my own because —_

The heavy sack of food nearly slipped from his shoulders, and the gravel beneath him gave way. He and the rocks slid nearly all the way to the bottom of the slope, and Link held back a scream of desperation as he began the uphill struggle all over again.

_It doesn't matter. I'll fight_. _I'll sneak. I'll steal her away and they'll never see. I'll be brave like Artorias or the Knights of Hyrule_.

He finally crested the hill, again coming upon his climbing tree. Its presence had always been a comfort to him in the past, but now its gnarled branches seemed almost like skeletal fingers reaching out to grasp him.

Voices echoed from below, though he could not yet see their sources. As carefully as he could, Link inched his way to the lip of the hill. Not far from the base of the slope lay the sinkhole which served the family as a well. Its rope had been severed, and the ring of stone surrounding it was broken. But the well was not what drew Link's gaze — rather it was the company of men, twelve or more, encircling two bloodied and groveling figures.

A coldness spread through the boy as he realized they were the figures of his aunt and uncle. He wanted to flee right then, to abandon all his foolish ideas of rescue, but —

_But I can't run away, not on my own because —_

The mere sight of what they'd done to Uncle — the crooked legs, the raw and peeled-back scalp — made bile rise in Link's throat. He wanted to close his eyes or to look away, but the paralysis of his own fear prevented him.

There came a snarl, and Link's eyes were drawn to a harrowingly familiar man towering over Auntie: a brutish Ogre of a person clad in an iron beastplate. One of his feet pressed down on Auntie's back, pushing her face firmly into the dirt.

But Aryll…?

After a moment of panicked scanning he spied her, set upon the lap of a small old man with a long shock of white hair. Aryll appeared unharmed, but every so often would make a feeble attempt to escape from the elder's grasp. The man seemed to be trading some sort of words with either Auntie or Uncle, though Link could hear none of them.

He clenched his small fists, feeling the sack full of supplies weighing down on his back. The loose gravel shifted beneath him. Yet again the urge to flee returned, but —

_But I can't run away, not on my own because I just can't _live_ without any of you._

Another sound from below. The old man, whom Link did not yet know to be Elder Smith, spoke a word which sounded like a command. Someone stepped from the circle of tribesmen, and once more the sickening feeling of dread settled in Link's stomach.

It was him, the man whose painted face had haunted Link's dreams in the scant days since he and Uncle had encountered the slave-drivers of the desert. Loping forward like some sort of animal, the Throatcutter seized hold of young Aryll and hoisted her beneath one hairy arm. She screamed again, a cry that was this time joined by Auntie. Link, unable to help himself, jerked upwards onto his knees. _Aryll_, he nearly cried out, but the words caught in his throat.

Yet again the gravel shifted beneath him, sending a shower of loose stone tumbling down the hillside. The three leashed hounds began to bellow and lunge against their restraints.

Another command from Elder Smith, and a chorus of foul laughter rose from the band of Black Spiders. Ogre Rhys aimed a brutal kick for Auntie's ribs, and she spasmed as though something had just been torn out of her. Two more men stalked toward Uncle, spears readied in their hands, when a shout arose from the group:

_ "Up there! Boy!_"

Twelve red, ghastly faces turned at once in Link's direction, and though he could not understand the words that had been called out, he knew instantly that he'd been sighted. The cold hand of fear gripped him again, and he backpedaled frantically from the edge of the hill.

A dreadful mistake.

_I'll sneak, I'll fight, I'll be brave —_

For a second time the stone and ash beneath him gave way, and Link found himself slipping, tumbling down the embankment. The world spun topsy-turvy for one sickening moment, and then both Link and the contents of his torn knapsack came spilling down onto the base of the slope. One of his scattered jars went skittering toward the well, rolling between the gap in the ring of stones and falling into the abyss.

Link coughed, breathless and choking on dust. When his vision finally settled, a grotesque, one-eyed face hung above him, smiling with a mouthful of gray teeth.

_I'll fight, I'll be brave —_

Hands seized him, and Link was hoisted, shouting, onto a man's bony shoulder. He was thrown roughly into the ashes at the feet of Elder Smith, surrounded on all sides by crooked men with vicious, leering eyes. Uncle wept beside him, immobile and helpless. Auntie lay still, her eyes partially lidded, breaths rasping through her parted lips. Her chest had been pierced deeply by some sort of weapon, and blood pooled beneath her.

"Please," Uncle gasped, "my nephew — they're only children."

Link wanted to strike out at the men with his fists and nails and teeth —

_I'll be brave _—

But the overwhelming fear kept in him frozen in place.

Aryll, still pinned beneath the Throatcutter's arm, bawled and struggled. "Link," she wailed, her small hand reaching out for her brother, pleading for something that perhaps she herself didn't know the meaning of. "Link, please..."

Link lifted his eyes to the old man standing above him. Elder Smith's grimace had hardened into a mask of dark antipathy. His spindly hands tightened on the reins of his raging hounds, and with a shout he gave a vicious jerk of their lines. The beasts fell silent, their barks dissipating into a gibber of pained yips. Smith's gaze fell on Link, and in them the boy saw something that terrified him perhaps even more than the Throatcutter. For in spite of the monstrosity of everything, the wickedness he sensed within the old man's countenance, there was also something else as well — something perfectly and irrefutably _human_.

"Do what you will," the elder hissed to the Throatcutter and Ogre Rhys. Then, with a click of his tongue, he turned and shepherded his tethered beasts away from the scene.

The Throatcutter thrust Aryll into the arms of one of his cohorts, trading the girl for the other man's spear. Then he knelt before Link and Uncle, that sharp-toothed smile returning to his face. His eyes shone with a kind of malevolent glee, and his foul breath filled Link's nostrils. The Throatcutter's glance shifted from the boy to his uncle.

"Make you a deal," he said, his voice breaking over the words like grinding stone. "Will let one child go. But only if they run fast. Yes? But —" The Throatcutter held up one finger before Uncle's battered face. "You choose which one to live. Boy? Or girl?"

Link saw Uncle's eyes widen with horror. His ruptured lips trembled. "I…" he stammered, "I…"

"Uncle," Link whispered, his voice shaking with terror. Hearing his voice, Uncle's dismayed gaze turned instinctively to his nephew.

Something in his eyes shook Link to his core. Uncle had weathered so much more than the boy could ever imagine: fear and starvation and unspeakable circumstances. Link had never thought of him as anything other than strong — less a man than a kind of enduring, implacable force. But now, wallowing on the ground in his own blood and tears, he seemed even more helpless than Link himself.

"So?" pressed the Throatcutter, tapping the end of his spear against the ground, "boy or girl? No answer? Then we take both."

"I can't," choked Uncle hoarsely. "Please don't make me…"

The Throatcutter spat into the dust, the charcoal skull on his face twisting into an expression resembling disappointment. "Very well," he said, and gestured to the man holding Aryll. The little girl screamed again as he began to carry her off, and Link felt hands seize him once more.

"_Wait!_" cried Uncle, and the Throatcutter quickly signaled for his men to halt.

"Then answer," he said, his eyes shining darkly beneath the shadows of his grisly headdress. "Who lives? Boy? Or girl?"

An awful groan escaped Uncle's lips, and Link silently wondered at the reason for such senseless cruelty. As though unable to bear the shame of his next decision, Uncle buried his face in the ashes and whispered the word so quietly that it was nearly lost on the wind:

"_Girl_."

The Throatcutter paused a moment to consider the decision, picking at his filed teeth with a ragged thumbnail. His gaze hovered over Therese, still lying motionless on the ground. The pool of blood beneath her continued to grow. Finally, the Throatcutter let out a short grunt.

"Well," he began warily, "prefer to keep women. And your woman looks bad. _Very _bad. Won't live anyhow, methinks. So…"

The Throatcutter's mouth once again curled into a crooked smile.

"Boy it is, then."

He reached out for Link, hoisting him up by the front of his ragged shirt. Uncle's shouts of dismay fell on deaf ears. Aryll, still in the clutches of her captors, shrieked her own protests. The Throatcutter held Link still, his reeking face inches from the boy's.

"Now you run" he instructed, "And if you get away, you live. Yes? Will count from ten. Then we follow."

"No," gasped Uncle.

"Ten."

The Throatcutter released Link and stepped back, rising to his full height. The other men cackled, watching as Link simply stood in dumbfounded mortification.

"Nine."

The spear shifted in the Throatcutter's grasp. Link wanted to speak, to beg the men to wait, but —

"Eight."

A small, pitiful sound escaped the little boy's mouth. His legs were like stone.

"Seven."

"Run," gasped Uncle, his eyes wild, "Link, _run._"

His limbs unlocking at last, Link turned on his heels and bolted. The circle of Black Spiders parted to allow his escape, still laughing amongst themselves.

"Six!" shouted the Throatcutter.

Blood pounded in Link's ears as he ran. To where, he didn't know. His instinctive thought was over the hill whose slope he has slipped from moments ago, but —

"Five!"

But no, there was no way he could make it in time, unless —

"Four!"

There was no other choice.

_I'll be brave_.

With a flood of adrenaline, Link charged forward, closing the gap between himself and open well that lay at the base of the slope.

"Three!"

The Throatcutter's count was accelerating, shorter and shorter pauses left between numbers. For the briefest of moments, Link cast a glance over his shoulder — and in the instant it took to see just how few paces he'd traveled, he snagged one clothbound foot on another. He fell face-first into the gravel, skinning both palms raw. More laughter from the men behind him as he scrambled to his feet.

"_Two!_"

Link rose, lunging for the hillside. All that lay between he and it was the gaping pit of the well. From behind him, Uncle let out a cry. Aryll screamed her brother's name.

"_Link, watch—!_"

He didn't hear her finish the sentence. Nor did he see the Throatcutter hurl the spear.

But he did feel the blinding pain of it striking him in the back, piercing into his right shoulder blade. Link lurched forward, stumbling, for a moment unable to even recognize where he was. He fell against the broken ring of stone about the well, half-conscious, fingers clawing for a handhold.

Then he slipped and fell even further, tumbling into the deep darkness.

* * *

When he came to, Link found himself lost in abyss seemingly without beginning or end. He was blinded, suffocating, unable to hear or to smell. Then the pain returned, coursing like acid through his back and shoulder. With it came all of the horrid memories from that day: the blood, the screams, the terror and the tears. A foul ichor filled his mouth and seeped into his eyes.

He thrashed wildly, and his sight returned as his head surfaced from black waters. Link gasped desperately for air, his mind still reeling from the fall. As his faculties slowly came back to him, he realized that he was standing chest-deep in the cold, oily muck collecting at the bottom of the well. A coarse length of rope, cut loose from the crossbeams above, had tangled itself about his waist and neck. The splintered shaft of a spear floated before him, and as his fingers crept to feel at the throbbing wound in his back, he found the weapon's head still rooted between flesh and bone. Though it hadn't pierced him deeply, the pain was excruciating. His right arm twinged with each movement, and Link wondered if he had broken anything.

How long had he been unconscious? he wondered. It couldn't have been more than a few moments, or the waters, shallow as they were, would have surely drowned him. Lifting his eyes to the the circle of daylight up above, he was struck by how short of a distance he must have fallen. He'd always imagined the pit to stretch endlessly downward into the very bowels of the earth, but looking at it now from the bottom, he realized it couldn't have been much more than the height of four or five fully-grown men.

The sound of shouting echoed down to him from above, something which sounded like an argument between several furious voices. One of them he recognized as the Throatcutter's.

A shape appeared in the mouth of the well high above him, and Link could faintly recognize it as a face. That awful voice boomed out again, resonating off the dank stone walls. "Boy!" it shouted, almost in a laugh. Then again, after a long silence: "_Boy!"_

Shivering and bleeding, Link shrank against the cold stone. He dared not speak, and hardly dared to move. After a time the Throatcutter's face vanished, and he spoke something indistinguishable. Whatever he'd said drew the laughter of his companions, and the rage of Link's uncle. Uncle began to roar curses and threats, and Aryll cried again from somewhere far away. She continued to scream until her voice faded as though into the distance.

Link sat in the dark, paralyzed by shock and pain. He listened to the awful sounds coming from the surface, every morbid detail: the shouts, the cries, the awful gales of laughter. On and on and on they went, and Link could only imagine what he couldn't see.

But through all of it, he didn't scream.

The sunlight dimmed, and the circle of blinding white above him dulled to a deep scarlet. Dark wisps of smoke drifted across the opening, and amidst the stench of rot and mildew, Link imagined he caught traces of something burning. For a time there was silence, and he wondered if he were about to awaken from some awful nightmare. Yes, he would wake up and he would be in Auntie's arms, and he would cry and feel ashamed at having wet himself during the night, but it would be okay, everything would be okay because they would be _alive_.

The sound of the voice jerked Link from his fantasies: "_Boy!_"

He looked up to once again see the face of the Throatcutter framed against the fiery sky. "Boy! You still live?" Yet again, Link dared not answer. The face swayed, as though searching for something it could not see. Then it continued: "No rope to send down for you, boy! But we have a gift instead! Look!"

The man reached out and hurled something into the well, something which thudded wetly against the cylindrical walls as it fell. Link ducked, shielding his head with both arms as the ragged thing came splashing down into the polluted waters. It bobbed for a moment like some kind of blighted apple, and as he realized what it was, Link was stricken with the overwhelmingly black desire to simply _cease being_ altogether — to shrivel up and let death take him before he could see or feel any more.

Floating before him was Uncle's severed head, its eyes plucked out and the tongue cut from its open mouth. The eight-legged symbol of the Black Spiders had been carved into the flesh of its brow. The men on the surface howled with laughter.

Yet in spite of it all, Link still did not scream.

* * *

They left in the night, after hours of amusing themselves with the prospect of the boy's torture. One of the creatures hurled down bits of rock and freshly-gnawed bone. Another used the pit as a privy to relieve himself. But at last the Black Spiders grew tired of their games, and their voices became gradually quieter as they vanished into the dark. Link was left alone in the stench of blood and filth, feeling his strength slowly ebb.

He had grown cold in the water, colder than he could have ever imagined being. His shoulder pained him horribly, and the stabbing feeling in his right arm had receded to a dull ache. Something smooth and cylindrical brushed past his hand. He groped for it blindly with his unpained arm, peering at the object through the gloom.

It was a glass jar of pickled yams, the very one that had fallen into the well after Link's tumble down the hillside. Looking then on its florid contents, a feeling akin to hunger began to gnaw at him. Link struggled to crack the jar open with his maimed grip, but its seal held firm in spite of his best efforts. He had nearly found purchase on the lid when he felt the horrid clamminess of Uncle's head against his arm.

Link pushed it away with a spasm of revulsion, dropping the jar into the water. His vision swam, the hunger vanished, and a wave of overpowering nausea passed over him.

He thought of the blissful ignorance of earlier days; of Uncle's haggard frame emerging from a fully-stocked root cellar, his tired eyes twinkling with a rare smile. Of Auntie lying beside their tiny cooking fire, reciting bedtime stories while allowing ther niece and nephew to prod at the bulge of her pregnancy. Of Aryll with Straw Sally in her arms, trying vainly to balance a pail of muddy water atop her head. He thought of his past dreams of romance and wonder; of grand heroes from fairy tales and the ideals they stood for. Of the Knights of Hyrule and their quest to return hope to a hopeless world.

But here, at the bottom of the well, Link saw the bitter truth — that these stories were not real. That he'd been a fool to believe they could be. The worlds they held were nothing close to resembling the world where he lived. The Knights of Hyrule were only figments of someone's imagination. Only a story.

And so, plagued with those thoughts, Link closed his eyes and allowed fatigue to take him.

That night he dreamt of death. Blood pooled in the pits of a scorched-black desert, with eyeless heads bobbing in the rippling froth. The dusk sky swirled with clouds of smoke, and a crooked tree burned at the top of a hill.

A figure passed through it all, drifting like the spectre of something that had once been good and merciful. Its presence filled the boy with a familiar terror, the same he'd felt witnessing a skull-faced monster slit the throat of a crippled slave. But this figure was not the Throatcutter. Indeed, it was unlike any man Link had ever seen. It was a shadow, and yet within it burned a fire that could lay waste to the entire, wretched world. It bore this flame into the horizon of the wasteland, and then beyond.

* * *

He woke to find cold daylight streaming down on him. The murk around him seemed to have sapped the heat from his very bones, and looking down he could see that his fingertips had turned blue. He knew then that he would die here, alone, with no company but the mutilated remains of his dead uncle.

_Unless.._.

It was less of a thought than a feeling, a desire that stirred deep within him. Anger and fear and an instinctual desperation to survive, all together forming a warmth to drive back the cold. Turning his gaze upward, the mouth of the well seemed so, so far away. Impossible to reach…

_Unless_...

The boy grasped at the walls, feeling pain once again in his shoulder and back and swollen right arm. He ignored it, digging bloody fingers into slick stone, clawing for a handhold. There was almost nothing, no seams or cracks to take hold of, only the tiniest ridges of outcropped rock left from whatever beast had gnawed its way through the ground. Not nearly enough to grip, let alone scale.

_Unless I just _try_._

Slowly, inch by agonizing inch, he began to pull himself up. Blood pulsed in his ears and his stomach twisted with nausea and his limbs quaked with the effort, but somehow, through either some miracle or through sheer force of willpower, he climbed. Now and again he halted, fingers probing for their next anchor, and after what felt like an endless struggle he found himself reaching out for those final heaves which would bring him out of the darkness. He stretched his arm out again.

Then his footing slipped, and he fell.

He dropped again like a stone, crashing through the gory mud and striking his already-injured arm against the craggy floor. There was a terrible _snap _as he felt something give inside of it. Blood and bone. Misery and rage. Surfacing, he cradled his broken right arm. Once more that overwhelmingly black desire boiled up within him.

He had remained silent through everything. But now, finally, he screamed the scream of a cornered, dying animal.

Shadows fell on his vision, but through them Link thought he heard the sound of voices echoing in the distance. Fragmented words:

"_Hear…?_"

"_Voice…?_"

"_Down_…"

"_Bottom_…"

Something touched Link's face, and for a moment he could see again. Above him, the mouth of the well yawned almost brighter than it had before. A long coil of rope snaked its way down to brush his cheek, and descending it was the shape of a man.

"_A boy_…"

"_Alive_…"

The next Link felt was a sensation of weightlessness, followed by a warmth on his face. When he next opened his eyes he found himself in the sunlight, beneath the gaze of many eyes. A man leaned over him, and as his ragged cloak parted Link perceived a symbol worn beneath it: a mighty-looking creature which he did not yet know as a lion.

"_Safe_…"

As consciousness slipped from him again, he fell once more into dark dreams. Visions of loss and terror and of monsters who were also men. Of the Knights of Hyrule and their quest to return hope to a hopeless world. But they weren't real. The Knights of Hyrule were only figments of a fool's imagination. Only a story.

Were they not?


	6. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Lapping waters, groaning stone. Shadows stretched on almost infinitely, seeming to collect within the depths of the world itself. An echo retreated into the dark, like a fading memory.

"Wow," gasped Aryll breathlessly, cocking her head to listen.

Link looked down at her, a strange perturbance prickling in the back of his mind. There was a comfort he took in her fascination with as simple a thing as an echo, but something else as well. Something he couldn't quite place. A sense of…

"What?"

"Nothin'," shrugged Aryll, "just wow."

It was morning, and they had been sent to gather that day's water for straining — a simple chore, but no chore was immune to distractions when it came to a boy and his little sister. They'd been warring over which of them could create the loudest noise down below, listening in wonder at the gurgling sound the water made when it swallowed up fallen stones.

Aryll's eyes were wide. "How deep's it go?"

That perturbance again, like a warning in the back of Link's mind. Then it receded, and he was left only with the blithe amusement of his sister's ignorance. He found himself smiling slyly.

"How deep?" he asked with exaggerated incredulity. "You really don't know?"

Aryll blinked, confused by his tone. "No," she shook her head, "know what?"

"Well — it's a well! And all wells are the same. They go all the way down to the bottom of the world, where it's dark and slimy."

"Really?"

"Really. They're air holes for all the creepy-crawly monsters that live underground."

"No, they're not!"

"Yeah, they are!"

Aryll squirmed at the prospect, and Link held back another smile. She'd always feared the beasts of the Deadlands, the Sinkworms and Stingcrawlers and flesh-burrowing parasites —

_And the bad people with faces painted like skulls_ —

— even if they were rare enough for her never to have seen them with her own eyes. Aryll's arms wrapped tighter about the burlap droop of Straw Sally, which she'd become so inseparable from over the past year.

"They got lots of time under there to grow big and fat, so they're as tall as our hill — taller, even!" said Link dramatically, gesturing to his favorite tree atop the hill.

"Shut up!" Aryll stammered meekly. "You're just tryin' to scare me!"

"Nuh-uh. I'm telling the truth," Link grinned. Again that feeling, unshakeable as his own shadow —

_Don't tease her, it's cruel even if it's just a joke —_

He crept slowly closer to Aryll, hands raised like the outstretched claws of a predator. "There's all kinds of stuff down there. And one day they're gonna all come crawling up out, and they're gonna slither into your bedstraw — and _eatcha!_"

Aryll screeched as Link struck the cloudy water in the well's drawing pail, spritzing her with flecks of mud. "Auntie! Link's bein' an _asshole!_" she cried, turning back to the cave under the hill.

At this, Link couldn't contain his laughter. Though she'd heard many curses from Auntie and Uncle both, he doubted she truly knew what the word "asshole" even meant. He looked to see Auntie knelt in the nearby mouth of the cave, building a small fire to boil the impurities from their previously-strained water. At Aryll's scream, she glanced upward from her work with a frown of mild annoyance.

"Link, don't tease your sister," she called out exasperatedly.

"I wasn't doing anything bad!" Link protested. Scowling through mud and tears, Aryll stomped closer and angrily kicked him in the shin. "_Ow!_" he cried. Still that feeling in the back of his mind, like a gnawing doubt. A sense of…

_ Awareness? Danger?_

Another echo from the well, a wet gurgling like a throatful of blood. A presence behind him made Link turn, and he saw Uncle rounding the bend in the little valley. He should have been a comforting sight, his dusty pack no doubt laden with that night's supper, but as he approached, that prickling sensation only grew stronger.

"Uncle," Link called out, wanting to smile and rush closer with Aryll, to help Uncle carry the things he'd scavved. He reached to take his sister by the hand, but she was gone. As was Auntie. Link smelled smoke and moisture and claggy waters tainted with blood. Another echo from the well, this time the sound of laughter. The prickling feeling sharpened, and Link knew now without a doubt that it was a sense of…

_Dread_.

"Uncle," he said shakily, frozen in place as Uncle shambled closer. The man's head was lowered as he sifted through his pack, but as he drew closer he lifted his face to Link. His face — not his eyes, because the man before him had no eyes, only ragged holes filled with blood and raw flesh. He croaked two words with a lipless, tongueless mouth:

_"Bear it."_

Link woke from the dream with a sharp intake of breath. The first he felt was pain, a dull but steady ache running through his back and right arm. Darkness and stale air surrounded him in a suffocating must, and the last remnants of the nightmare echoed in his mind. That pervasive feeling of dread. His mouth was dry as desert sand.

Where was he?

_Auntie — Uncle — Aryll_ —

The floor beneath him was dry soil, and a threadbare blanket had been draped over his chest. As he pushed it aside, he felt something chafe across his aching right arm. A linen wrapping had been set about it, along with a dry piece of wood acting as a sort of splint. Link rose, a sharp pain stabbing through his back. He reached about to feel at the place where the Throatcutter's spearhead had pierced, only to find that wound also patched with bandages. Other than the wrappings, he'd been stripped almost naked. His mind was a muddle of broken and half-formed thoughts:

_How—? What—? Who could—?_

But the dread was slowly dying, replaced by a tenuous assurance that the danger had passed. Lifting his eyes, Link found a rectangular shape above him rimmed with light: a door in the ceiling, with a flight of rickety steps leading up to it. As his vision slowly adjusted to the gloom, he was struck with a peculiar sense of remembrance. The room around him was a place he already knew, one he'd found just days ago scavving the Deadlands with Uncle. Standing against the earthen walls were shelves lined with glass jars, many of them empty, but a few holding shriveled red things in cloudy liquid.

_Pickled yams_, _soaked in something funny-smelling called vinegar._

He struggled to stand, grunting feebly with the effort of it. A brief search of his surroundings revealed his old sackcloth clothing folded beside the blanket. They were rank with mudstains and smelled of something that made Link's stomach turn, but he pulled them on regardless. It took a concentrated, and not altogether painless effort to fit his injured limb through the hole of his shirt. Clutching his right arm in his left, he tottered wearily to the staircase leading up toward the dim rectangle of light.

As he climbed, he sensed a dull scraping sound, like metal on metal, emanating from above. After a moment of awkward deliberation of how to open the door, he pressed his shoulders against it and pushed upward. The wound in his back stung, but with a creak of rusted hinges the door eased open and Link found himself peering out into the sun-dappled ruins of a decrepit old farmhouse. The familiarity of it was puzzling, an odd sense of _déjà vu _that the boy had experienced very few times in his young life. A group of dirty bedrolls lay spread across the cindery floor, half a dozen or more, yet they were not the most striking thing he saw.

Sitting several paces from the cellar trapdoor was a girl — not quite yet a young woman — running the length of a sword across a piece of black slate. Focused as she was on her task, she hadn't noticed the sound of Link climbing the cellar stairs. As the door screeched open, however, she rounded with a start.

She was a strange sight for the boy. Other than his own sister, he had never seen another living girl so close before. She couldn't have been more than three years Link's elder, though barely even that. Her complexion was fair, if reddened by the sun, and her angular face was set with a pair of large, blue eyes. The blonde hair on her head was drawn back into a greasy, unwashed ponytail, and a smattering of red pimples speckled her brows.

"Oh," the girl said almost sullenly, her posture relaxing, "you're awake." She turned back to her work, scraping the edge of the sword across the stone. Link wondered at the size of the weapon, considering whether or not the girl could even wield it. The bare arms exposed through her sleeveless tunic were reasonably muscled, but the blade itself was even taller than she was.

Link watched her for a moment through the gap in the open door, feeling its aching weight upon his shoulders. His mind spun with a dozen disparate questions. At length he spoke, interrupting the sound of the girl's work. His swollen tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth, and his voice was a hoarse rasp.

"Who are you?"

She paused, turning her gaze to the boy in the frame of the trapdoor. A part of Link noticed the sickly pallor about her face, but he was in too much of a stupor to recognize the scorn in her expression.

"We picked you up two days ago. You were dying in a hole. So we pulled you out," she grunted. A cough, and for the second time she resumed sharpening her blade. Link couldn't help but let his eyes be drawn to the gap beneath the arms of her sleeveless tunic. Her slender breasts peaked through the material, moving with each grinding slip of the sword. The girl remained ignorant of his awkward stare.

The boy moved his dry lips wordlessly, unsure of what to say. "But," he spoke at last, his voice shaky with apprehension, "who _are_ you?"

The girl sighed, pausing yet again and wiping sweat from her brow. She glared at Link, and at last he sensed the odd contempt in her eyes. "Come on," she said, rising to her feet with what seemed like an effort. She took the sword with her.

Coughing, she led him outside through the cottage's ragged doorframe. Already Link recalled crouching through the same doorway only days earlier, stealing quietly away with Uncle before a band of slavedrivers could discover them.

It was noontime, if not later, and the sun burned brightly in a cloudless sky. Link squinted against the glare, and as his eyesight settled, he found himself gazing over a tiny encampment erected in the ashen remnants of a crop field. Six people he counted in total. Two stood at separate points off in the distance, as though keeping watch on the horizon. The other four sat huddled together a short ways away, gazing down intently at something in the center of their circle. As Link and the strange girl approached the huddle of four, their dirty faces rose to observe them.

Like the girl, they were a bizarre sight to Link's young eyes. Warriors they seemed, though markedly unlike the grim footmen that traveled under the banner of the Black Spider. Their haggard clothing was made of linen and sackcloth, and several of them bore a patchwork assembly of what looked like armor: leather boots, padded vests, even a single iron pauldron and a battered shirt of chainmail. To Link they almost looked like the pale shadows of knights errant from an old fable, their shining armor faded and weathered by time.

_Like Artorias the Brave_ _and his Warriors of the White Circle_. _Like —_

"Captain," said the teenage girl, halting at the edge if the circle. She spoke stiffly, bending slightly at the waist. There was a kind of unpracticed awkwardness in her bow, as if she accepted the formality without fully understanding it.

Someone rose from the huddle of rugged warriors, and again Link felt a sense of recognition, as if he'd seen the man before. No, perhaps not the man himself, but the symbol borne boldly across his chest: a four-legged beast of the old world, stitched in red onto a surcoat of white linen. Fearsome, but in a way that commanded more awe than terror. It reared back onto its hind legs, its mouth open in a mighty roar, with a mane of long hair flowing about its neck.

The man bearing the symbol was tall, perhaps taller than any other Link had seen. The boy had thought his own uncle to be great in height, but the man bearing the coat of arms could have towered over Uncle Daren by a considerable measure. His features were broad and rugged, with a graying beard and hair that fell to his shoulders. There was something austere about him beyond his imposing stature, a kind of power that Link found almost frightening. If ever someone were to be called "captain," Link knew it was him.

He approached the girl with long strides, and she hurriedly extended the great sword in both hands, still bent in that reverent bow. The captain took it from her and studied the blade closely. Then he placed it back into the girl's possession.

"Dull," was the only word he said before moving back to his seat amongst the others.

The girl stiffened, as though the single word had struck her as solidly as a blow to the chest. Then she bowed again, with what Link felt as a hint of reticense. "Yes, sir," she said quietly, then turned and marched back to the farmhouse. As she passed Link she kept her eyes low, refusing to meet his gaze. Her cheeks, previously pale, were flushed a deep scarlet.

The man she'd called captain beckoned Link closer. "Boy," he called out gruffly, "come here."

Link hesitated. Until that moment he'd kept what he felt was a safe distance from the unfamiliar people with weather-beaten armor. His fears remained of strange men bearing weapons, and the horror of the well was still fresh in his mind. The tall captain simply eyed the boy coolly beneath his thick brows.

"If we wanted you dead, we wouldn't have saved you to begin with," he said plainly. "Come. You've been out nearly a day. Eat something."

Link crept slowly closer, skittish as a wild animal. The captain bade him to sit, and so after a long moment's hesitation he did.

"Anju. Give him something," commanded the captain. One of the others, a pale woman with tired eyes, retrieved something from a knapsack of woven canvas. It was a glass jar of pickled yams, one of the many that Link and Uncle had vowed to retrieve at some later date.

_Uncle_.

The thought brought an unspeakable image to Link's mind — of bloody waters and an eyeless face and a Throatcutter's leering, sharp-toothed smile. He flinched outwardly at the very memory, a small sound escaping his thoat. The men and women sitting about the circle simply eyed him patiently until his breathing had subsided. When the stabbing pain of the memory faded, Link became dimly aware of the familiar pangs of hunger in his stomach. The dryness in his mouth felt suddenly unbearable.

With trembling fingers he took the jar, and after a clumsy, one-handed struggle, its lid popped open. The strange scent of vinegar wafted into his nostrils. He eagerly dug into the shriveled rinds, shoveling the thin slices two-at-a-time into his mouth. The woman who'd handed him the jar whispered into the captain's ear about rations, only for the man to wave her aside. Link was too absorbed in the food to even hear it, let alone care. The captain watched him eat in silence, only stopping the boy when he moved to drink the vinegar in the jar.

"I wouldn't," he said simply.

Link swallowed it regardless, choking on the acrid taste. The captain held out what Link recognized as a large waterskin, and he eagerly accepted it. As he drank, he became aware of the strange travelers' eyes upon him.

"That's enough," said the captain grimly, taking the waterskin back after Link had downed more than was necessary. He gestured to the boy's splinted arm. "We thought you might have to lose the arm. You're lucky it was a clean break. Lucky to be alive at all, in fact."

Link touched his broken arm, feeling the dull throb of pain. His back stung deeply. His thoughts, however, remained in the well with his uncle.

_An eyeless head with blood in its hair_.

He shivered. The last of the yam slices bobbed in its murky jar.

"I … I came here once with Uncle," whispered Link, the words emerging as if of someone else's accord. "We left these here so we could come back to them later."

The group of people before him was silent. Finally the captain asked, "You have a name, boy?"

Link licked his lips, wishing for another drink of water. "Link. It's Link."

"Link. My name is Rhoam Bosphoramus. I'm the leader of this company," replied the captain. "These people and I … well, I'm not sure what you'd say we are. A lot of different folks have called us a lot of different things."

Fear crept into Link's heart, and he asked in a quivering whisper: "Do you eat people?"

The captain named Rhoam Bosphoramus narrowed his eyes. "Do you?"

Link shook his head. "No."

The captain breathed slightly, as if in the tiniest sigh of relief. "Neither do we."

"Then," asked Link tentatively, grasping for the words, "you're not the bad people?"

Rhoam eyed the boy closely. His face was outwardly still, but his eyes were heavy with a strange sadness. A sort of sympathy. The wind rose for a moment, ruffling the long whiskers of his dark beard. All he said was, "I surely hope not."

Link's eyes traveled downward, and for the first time he noticed what the captain and his subordinates had been poring over when the boy was first brought to them. It was a piece of parchment — a map, like the ones Uncle had sometimes drawn to chart the course of a scavving trip. The captain spread it out on the ground before his own knees, with a pair of stones to hold it in place against the pull of the wind. It was impossibly weathered, frayed at the edges and blemished with stains of various colors.

_A map to where?_

"Who are you, then?" asked Link warily, his gaze hovering on the map.

Rhoam's eyes flickered beneath his brows. "I was hoping to ask you the same thing."

Link was unsure of how to respond. His mouth was like the desert. "I … we…" he began, licking his lips again. But he was unable to finish the thought.

_Auntie — Uncle — Aryll —_

Rhoam interjected. "You were scavengers, that much I gather. You had a well. A good home, all things considered. What happened?"

The very question brought with it memories that shook Link's soul. He covered his mouth with the hand of his uninjured arm, a feeling of slimy revulsion welling up in him. "I don't know," he said, his voice shaking. "I don't know what happened, I dunno why they did it. I dunno who they are — I don't even know who _you _are." Link felt as if he could weep.

Rhoam sighed, settling back into his seat on the dry earth. He reluctantly handed the waterskin back to the quivering boy before him, and Link took another much-desired drink. Then Rhoam spoke again. "The men who did this to you," he asked slowly, "did they have a banner?"

"Banner?"

"A sign. A symbol."

Link nodded.

"What did it look like?"

"It was a spider. A Black Spider."

Hearing this, a pall of grim silence fell on the company of men and women. Rhoam's lips pursed, and his calloused fingers returned to the yellowed map. He carefully shifted the stones that weighed it down. "I see," he said quietly. Then a deep inhale. "You're very lucky. _Very_ lucky."

"Who are they?" asked Link, his thin fingers wringing the mouth of the waterskin.

Rhoam's face darkened, and he seemed almost reluctant to answer. "Slavers. Cannibals. Murderers. And there are many more of them than the ones who hurt you. That much I can guarantee."

"And … and you?"

Again, Rhoam was quiet. His eyes remained on the map.

"I suppose you could say we're … _pilgrims_," he answered, choosing his words carefully. "Some of us are warriors, some of us slaves, some scavengers. Some of us are just looking for a home…" he trailed off, frowning deeply. "But I think we all have something in common. We've all seen the same things. And now, I think you've seen them too."

Link didn't have to be told what those things were. He could still see them with horrifying clarity: an eyeless face, ribs taut against skin, fingernails picking human flesh from rotten teeth. His stomach twisted and nearly turned up its most recent meal, but Link somehow managed to hold down the rising bile.

"You know, I used to think that might be all there was to the world," the captain said distantly. "I thought there was no point, no reason to even keep living. But…" Again he fell silent. He seemed to stare right through Link and on to the horizon — not at the horizon itself, but to some kind of abstraction that lay beyond it. "But there's a place somewhere out there, where green things still grow. Where people can call home. A kingdom, and a castle. And they say someday the bells of the old towers will ring, and we'll hear them all across the world —"

_And the Knights of Hyrule will march across the desert to make everything right again._

The words of Auntie's bedtime story echoed in Link's mind, and he spoke them aloud without realizing it. When he next looked up he found the captain's fierce stare fixed on him, with something akin to a smile set upon his lips.

"Yes," said Rhoam Bosphoramus, "that's the story. And that's who we are."

_The Knights of Hyrule_.

But they hardly looked like the Knights of Hyrule at all, at least not the ones that lived in Link's mind. The Knights of Hyrule stood proud and tall in gleaming suits of metal — yet the people before him were dusty and half-starved, weathered by hardships far harsher than just the elements.

_The Knights of Hyrule_.

"But," said Link falteringly, "that's just a story."

Rhoam's rugged face remained still, revealing nothing. "Is it?" he asked quietly. He sat broodingly for a time, then rose to his full, towering height and rolled the map into a leather sleeve that hung from his waist. "You might think so. But I have reason to believe otherwise. In any case, that isn't the concern right now. My concern is what to do with you."

Link blinked, his parched mouth struggling to shape words. "Do with me?"

The solemn introspection left Rhoam's eyes, and the coldness returned. "I won't lie to you, Link," he said grimly, "If I had my way, we might have left you at the bottom of that well. We have enough mouths to feed as it was. But since you're here, I'm going to give you a choice. And whatever you choose, well, I don't really give a damn. You can follow us, and live by my rules. Or you can go your own way. Whichever it is, we're leaving this place by sunrise."

Link's mind spun at the possibilities of all he'd just heard. Was it real? Did this man, Rhoam Bosphoramus, actually know something Link could not? His aunt whispered again in the boy's memories:

_That thing called peace, it's out there — you just have to find it for yourself_.

But as his thoughts returned to Auntie, a sickening feeling sank into Link's stomach. He drew a hand across his mouth, again feeling as if he could vomit. "M-my auntie," he whispered hoarsely, "my sister — where are they?"

A grim silence. None of the so-called knights seemed to know how to respond. Rhoam breathed again, a somber sigh that he seemed unable to contain.

"We left the bodies where we found them," he said quietly.

Link thought that he ought to cry, or to be ill, or feel anything at all. But the captain's words landed without any sort of sound, striking a kind of numbness inside of him. His voice small and shaking, Link stated weakly, "I wanna see it."

The captain frowned at him gravely. "Seeing it won't bring them back. They're gone."

Link repeated it. "I wanna see."

Rhoam's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Then he lifted his dark eyes to the dilapidated farmhouse behind Link. "Girl," he called out in loud, commanding bark. Then louder, when his first shout went unanswered: "_Zelda_."

The sullen, sickly figure of the girl came ambling out of the cottage, still clutching the captain's great sword in her hands. She passed Link without so much as a glance, keeping her eyes on the ground as she bowed. "Captain," she said rigidly. The captain extended a hand, and she presented him with his weapon. He took it without a word of thanks.

"The boy wants to see his home. Take him."

At this, the girl named Zelda lifted her eyes in startlement, breaking composure. "Me?"

Rhoam's face darkened at her reaction, and she quickly withered under his harsh gaze. "You found him," he growled. "He's your responsibility." Rhoam dismissed her with a wave of his hand. Then he seemed to consider something, and looked back to the others. "Ganondorf — you too. Keep them safe," he commanded.

The girl's cheeks flushed again, and she quickly stammered out, "Sir, he doesn't need —"

But Rhoam cut her off. "That's my order."

Link saw the girl's pale eyes dart toward him for the briefest of moments. Then she hung her head in resignation. "Yes, sir."

A large, ugly man with swarthy skin and hair like red fire rose from the edge of the huddle. He wordlessly spat into the dust and set about gathering his belongings. The girl's own preparations were a blur to Link, but in short order she had donned a sword and a jerkin of crudely-stitched leather. One of the knights, the same woman who had retrieved Link a jar of yams, fashioned him a makeshift sling from a strip of torn canvas. As it was tied about his neck, the girl named Zelda approached with a scowl on her face.

"Let's go," she grumbled.

* * *

The sun had fallen low when they finally came to their destination. They traveled in silence, with the man named Ganondorf pacing himself a fair distance ahead. As they approached the entrance of the little valley, he raised a hand and gestured for his young companions to halt. He drew them both into a long patch of shade behind a boulder, shooting the girl an intensely long stare.

"Wait," he said, his voice dark. Then he left them, disappearing for what Link thought to be some time. The girl named Zelda coughed at infrequent intervals. By the time the man returned, she seemed more than anxious to move ahead.

"Good," said Ganondorf simply, before leading them on.

At the mouth of the valley he paused, remaining behind to keep a watch. Zelda continued onward, allowing Link to lead the way. They entered, passing the ravaged leftovers of a meager ash garden. It was picked clean, the barren yam mounds either trampled flat or uprooted completely. As they came upon the family's home beneath the hill, Link found that his favorite tree had been cut down, with nothing remaining but a charred stump.

_It's one of the last_, Auntie had once said gravely.

The stones about the well were dark with dry blood, and the cold, smokeless remains of a bonfire lay by the cave's entrance. It had been built out of wood from the dead tree. Scraps of torn clothing lay about the ground, and the ashes were bestrewn with charred bones. Two black pikes had been set in the earth beside the fire, with the burnt remnants of a skeleton impaled on each of them.

Taking all of it in, Link felt as though he'd forgotten how to breathe.

"We saw the smoke from a ways off," said Zelda, the first she'd spoken since leaving the camp. Her voice was grim and quiet, and she gazed out over the grisly scene as if it were something all-too-familiar. "When we scouted it out, they were already gone. We thought you were all dead. Then I heard you screaming. In there." She pointed to the broken well.

Her words fell on deaf ears. Link tottered forward as though in a trance, his eyes glued to a small, blackened object half-buried in the cinders. It was a child's toy stitched out of rugged burlap: a dolly with a scorched tuft of straw hair. Little Aryll's best friend, who she would play and dance with in the dust. The girl's small voice still rang in Link's ears:

_Straw Sally walkin' along away across the sand, Straw Sally's lookin' for a far an' distant land_.

The numbness that had consumed him until that moment suddenly broke. Link's knees weakened, and as he sank to the ground, the feeling of overwhelming nausea finally became too much to bear. He doubled over, vomiting up water and sour yams. With dry ashes lying before and beneath him, the bitter cruelty of everything seemed suddenly laid bare. Again the horrifying blackness he'd felt at the bottom of the well came back to him, and he thought it might be better to simply die. He wept, holding his face so that he could no longer see the bones.

"Oh God," he whispered when words finally found him again. "_Why?_"

The girl named Zelda was silent. "I don't know," she said solemnly. "I don't know why."

Link's memories turned to his uncle teaching him to strike a fire with flint and steel; to his aunt singing to the growing bump of her belly. When he opened his eyes, all he could see of them were the ribs of two headless skeletons clinging dryly to the pikes. "My aunt," Link gasped, "she was gonna have a baby." His voice broke, and his tears began again. When they subsided, a new thought surfaced in his mind. "_Aryll_." His eyes fell to the little dolly, trampled halfway into the ground. He asked aloud, more to himself than to anyone else: "What about Aryll?"

Zelda didn't immediately answer. If Link had been watching her, he might have seen her composure dissolve into a grimace of quiet pity. She knelt beside him in the dust, reaching down to pull the dolly from the ashes. Not seeming to know what to say, she gently pressed the toy into Link's hand.

"We didn't find anyone else," she said quietly. "Just them."

Link held Straw Sally in his left hand, his thoughts returning to the Black Spiders and the Throatcutter. To their voices above the well, and Aryll's screams fading into the distance.

"She's alive," he whispered, more of a question than anything else.

Zelda's eyes were soft. "Maybe," she nodded.

Link's fingers closed around the toy, every muscle of his body drawing taut.

"She's alive." Not a question this time, but a frail declaration.

The black feeling inside of him became something else, its coldness turning to a boiling heat that he felt could devour him completely. That awful, withering desire became a different one — not the wish to die, but the wish to bring death onto something else. To scream, to break bone, to wrap his hands about the Throatcutter's neck and squeeze until that putrid smile was no more. He wanted to light a fire that would lay waste to the entire, wretched world.

The boy rose on quaking knees, his nose dripping phlegm and his eyes stinging with tears. His small fist gripped the dolly so tight it nearly tore open at its seams. He clutched it to his chest, as if in some grim pledge of vengeance. "I'm gonna find her," he hissed, his voice trembling with all of his weakness and hate. "I'm gonna find _them_. And I'm gonna kill every fucking one of them. I swear."

Zelda said nothing.

The sky darkened. The wind blew across the ashes. Bowing his head in despair, Link once again began to weep.

* * *

The knights in tattered armor departed at dawn, just as Rhoam Bosphoramus had promised. Link, who'd hardly slept a moment throughout the night, was awake to watch them rise. None of them acknowledged him, save for the occasional uneasy glance from young Zelda. As they set about preparing for the next leg of their strange journey, Link stepped from the suffocating confines of the dilapidated cottage.

Cradling his broken arm in its sling, Link found himself searching the scarlet horizon for the tiny dot that was his family's stead. He found nothing.

At his waist was Straw Sally, tied with a coil of rope Link had borrowed from his rescuers. Reaching down, he placed a hand on the toy simply for the reassurance that it was still there. Its touch briefly brought back a quivering hollowness inside of him, one that quickly filled with the scorching darkness of hate.

A wince. That painted, grinning face returned to his mind. A severed head, its tongueless mouth ajar in a silent scream. Auntie's helpless tears.

_And Aryll?_

His thoughts turned to a little girl sitting beside a fire, clutching her dolly with wide-eyed apprehension. Her incessant questions, and his uncertain answers.

_We'd never eat anybody, would we?_

_We wouldn't. Ever._

_And we'd never kill anybody, either?_

_No. Never._

He imagined her again, held in shackles with whips cracking at her ankles; helpless and crying in the pawing grasps of horrible beasts. The thoughts brought back rage blinding enough to dull even the pain of his injuries, and again Link wanted to feel bones breaking beneath his hands. To feel bloody iron tearing through flesh.

_Every fucking one of them. I swear._

"Boy," a voice called out, jerking Link from his dark thoughts.

It was Rhoam, approaching from the direction of the empty cottage. His knights stood outside awaiting their next order, already prepared to set out. Each of them, including the captain himself, was laden with a cloak, a pack, and a pair of large waterskins. In the captain's hand was a canvas knapsack and a bedroll. He tossed it on the ground halfway between himself and Link.

"We're leaving. If you're coming, then come. If not…" R fhoam paused, his face stony and severe. "If not, that's all we can give you." He left the pack where it lay, turning back and gesturing sharply to his subordinates. They wordlessly turned and began to trundle off, very few of them looking back to Link at all.

For his own part, Link eyed the pack with silent consideration. He again lifted his eyes to the horizon, scanning it as he used to from the limbs his old climbing tree, searching for something out of a fantasy: mountains, seas, green pastures and dense forests. A castle on a hill, with great towers and bells of shining brass.

But still there was nothing, and no sign that it ever even existed.

"Kid," called out the voice of Zelda from afar, "are you coming?"

Link was silent at first, feeling his heart fill with a familiar yearning for something he couldn't identify. Then he turned, replying in a voice that was low and clear.

"Okay."

**End Part 1**

* * *

_Cruel, cruel world, must I go on?  
__Cruel, cruel world, I'm moving on  
__I've been living too fast  
__And I've been living too wrong  
__Cruel, cruel world, I'm gone  
_\- Willie Nelson


End file.
